NONINVASIVE CARDIAC-OUTPUT MONITORING

CO2-rebreathing methods, rebreathing of soluble gases, Doppler ultraso und and transthoracic or transoesophageal bioimpedance are non-invasiv e methods to determine cardiac output, In the clinical setting, Dopple r techniques are established methods for analysing cardiac performance , The major advantage of this technique is the possibility to visualiz e myocardial and valve function, However, it is more difficult to get reliable results of cardiac output by means of Doppler techniques comp ared with invasive techniques, The CO2-rebreathing-methods do not requ ire an extensive technical equipment but the validity of the results i s still poor, Recent studies of cardiac output monitoring using solubl e gases showed acceptable and promising results, Changes in hard- and software did improve the validity of transthoracic bioimpedance. Intra thoracal measurement by means of an esophageal probe could be an alter native, First published results are promising, but final validation of this approach has to be expected.