Non Invasive Measurement of Cardiac Index by Impedance Cardiography

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is defined as a pulmonary arterial mean pressure (meanPAP) ≥ 25 mmHg in the right heart catheterization. There are different forms of PH defined in the classification of Dana Point 2008. PH is diagnosed with right heart catheterization but there are other non invasive methods which can be used for screening like echocardiography, stress echocardiography and cardio pulmonary exercise testing. For prognosis of PH patients the limitation of the pulmonary circulation is very important. Therefore the cardiac index (CI) is a good parameter for the right ventricular function. The gold standard for CI measures is the thermodilution, an invasive method performed during right heart catheterization.