Aim. To determine the clinical usefulness of invasive and non-invasive haem
odynamic assessment in pre-eclampsia.
Method. A systematic review of the literature was undertaken, using a MEDLI
NE electronic search using a combination of MESH headings and textwords. Ov
er 1500 abstracts were perused; we obtained 156 full papers that were relat
ed to the subject matter. Of the full papers, 55 yielded relevant informati
on. Hand-searching the reference lists of the retrieved papers completed th
e search.
Results. There are no data from randomized controlled clinical trials illus
trating the clinical usefulness of pulmonary artery catheters or echocardio
graphic techniques in hypertensive pregnancy. There are a wealth of data il
lustrating the haemodynamic profiles of both untreated and treated pre-ecla
mptic women. Data are also available comparing right heart and left heart f
illing pressures, demonstrating a relatively poor correlation between the t
wo values. The clinical impact of either measurement is unclear.
Data are available illustrating the correlation between echocardiographic t
echniques and pulmonary artery catheterization.