Consistency of Electrical Cardiometry and Pulmonary Artery Catheter

Currently, the gold standard method to estimate CO in patients with PAH or RV dysfunction is pulmonary artery catheter (PAC), however, the invasiveness and complexity of PAC has limited its usefulness in many clinical scenarios. By measuring the thoracic electrical bioimpedance, electrical cardiometry (EC) technique has been reported to noninvasively estimate cardiac output (CO) and other parameters related to cardiac contractility and fluid status in various cardiovascular disorders. However, in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and/or right ventricular (RV) dysfunction, few study has been reported. The aim of this study is to evaluate the agreement between CO measured by PAC as the referenced method and CO measured by EC technique in patients with PAH and/or RV dysfunction.