Journal of clinical monitoring and computing
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J Clin Monit Comput · Dec 1998
The fast flush test--is the clinical comparison equivalent to its in vitro simulation?
An in vitro simulation of the fast flush (FL) test has previously been used to prove that the FL test-measures the dynamic response of entire the blood pressure monitoring system. This simulation has also been used to confirm that the FL test is equivalent to the "gold standard" test for determining dynamic response, namely the square wave (SW) test. The conditions of the in vitro simulation can be reproduced in vivo during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and circulatory arrest. Therefore the present objective was to verify that the previous conclusions about the validity of the FL test, obtained from an in vitro model, are equally valid when applied to in vivo clinical conditions. A secondary objective was to determine whether the patient's arterial tree has any affect on the dynamic characteristics of fluid-filled manometers. ⋯ The clinical conditions during CPB and particularly during circulatory arrest duplicate the in vitro FL test simulation model. These results confirm the validity of the FL test in vivo as well as proving that the dynamic characteristics of a fluid-filled manometer are independent of the patient's vasculature.