Reliability of central venous pressure as a measure of changes in left sided intracardiac pressures.

Intracardiac pressures were simultaneously recorded in all cardiac chambers in anesthetized intact dogs during periods of volume overload produced by infusion of a blood saline mixture. The right and left intracardiac pressures increased simultaneously during the interval of infusion with the left side greater than the right side. The administration of a positive myocardial inotropic drug resulted in a corresponding right and left sided decrease in intracardiac pressures. The mean pressure increase in the left atrium was reliably predicted from simultaneous changes in the right atrial pressure. Tbe pressure change in the right atrium when 2 mm are added to adjust for differences in zero reference and then multiplied by two was approximately equivalent to concurrent changes in left atrial pressure.