Haemodynamic monitoring after paediatric cardiac surgery using echocardiography and PiCCO.

BACKGROUND

Haemodynamic instability is common after surgical repair of CHDs in infants and children. Monitoring cardiac output in addition to traditional circulation parameters could improve the postoperative care of these patients. Echocardiography and transpulmonary thermodilution are the two most common methods for measuring cardiac output in infants.

OBJECTIVES

To compare the results of cardiac output measurements using echocardiography and a transpulmonary thermodilution setup after paediatric cardiac surgery.

METHODS

Forty children, scheduled for elective repair of a ventricular septal defect or of an atrio-ventricular septal defect using cardiopulmonary bypass, were enrolled in this prospective, observational study. Cardiac output was simultaneously measured using echocardiography and a commercially available transpulmonary thermodilution method (PiCCO™) at 18 h after the end of surgery.

RESULTS

At 18 h after surgery, PiCCO™ gave a mean of 3.0% higher cardiac output than echocardiography. This difference was not statistically significant. 95% of the observations fell within -50.0 to 82.6%.

CONCLUSION

The methods were found to have a good agreement on average, with no statistically significant difference between them. However, the spread of the results was large. It is questionable whether the methods can be used interchangeably in clinical practice.