ABSTRACT
Cardiac output (CO) monitoring measures various parameters associated with the central circulation and is the Holy Grail of haemodynamic assessment. The ideal method of measuring CO would be non-invasive, accurate, continuous, safe, easy to use and operator independent. It would provide rapid data acquisition and be cost-effective. Conventional thermodilution techniques using a pulmonary artery floatation catheter (PAFC) remain the clinical gold standard for accuracy in CO monitoring. A PAFC is a device that can be used to measure cardiac filling pressures, pulmonary artery occlusion pressure, central venous oxygen saturations and core temperature. The Fick method of calculating CO uses the Fick’s principle to measure the CO of the pulmonary circulation. The Fick’s method is extremely accurate, but in reality it is very time-consuming and cumbersome to obtain the required measurements. The assumed value for O2 consumption is sometimes used to calculate the CO.
