Thoracocardiography. Part 1: Noninvasive measurement of changes in stroke volume comparisons to thermodilution.

The thoracocardiograph (TCG) is a new noninvasive monitoring device that measures cardiac oscillations transmitted to the external surface of the thorax. It consists of 2.5 cm in height, elastic inductive plethysmographic transducers placed transversely in the proximity of the xiphoid process to provide changes in cross-sectional area on a transverse plane across the minor ventricular axis. Cardiac oscillations synchronous with each heart beat are extracted from the respiratory signal during breathing with an ensemble-averaging technique using the electrocardiograph as a trigger pulse. The average cardiac waveform at locations near the xiphoid process in normal humans has the appearance of a ventricular volume curve. The latter is also found in the majority of patients with heart disease although in some, outward (dyskinetic) rather than inward motion during systole occurs at one or more locations of the TCG transducers. As in echocardiography, such findings are consistent with ischemic or scarred myocardium invalidating computation of changes in stroke volume from such sites. In anesthetized dogs and critically ill patients with normal ventricular wall motion, changes in TCG derived ventricular volume waveform amplitudes agreed well with changes of thermodilution estimates of stroke volume during atrial pacing and fluid loading in the dogs on the one hand and with application of extrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) in patients on the other hand. Thoracocardiography has the potential for noninvasive, continuous monitoring of stroke volume and cardiac output as well as for detection of ischemic or scarred myocardium.