Pulmonary artery catheter is an invasive monitor usually placed in high-risk cardiac surgical patients to optimize the cardiac functions. We present this case of blood oozing from the oximetry connection port of the pulmonary artery catheter that resulted in the inability to monitor continuous cardiac output requiring replacement of the catheter. The cause of this abnormal bleeding was later co...

In 25 cardiac surgical patients, right ventricular ejection fraction was continuously measured with a new pulmonary artery catheter and transoesophageal echocardiography, scanning the 'fractional area change' in a standardised transatrial cross section area. Measurements were recorded at three predefined time points (pre-, intra-, and postoperatively). Both methods were compared using the Bland...

Fig. 1. Axial CT-scan image showing intercostal catheter located in the right pulmonary artery. Fig. 2. CT-scan image six weeks post removal of the catheter showing the sealed tract. used is by no means innocuous. Bleeding complications have been seen in patients with dense adhesions in the pleural space and in the post-pneumonectomy state. In the latter situation pulmonary vascular injury has ...

A new catheter suitable for right heart catheterization with percutaneous technique is described. It is made out of the standard PE i6o catheter. The catheter tip does not irritate the myocardium because it has an end loop and the catheter cannot enter fine vessels. The catheter is also easily passed to the pulmonary artery without the aid of x-rays. It has proved useful in pulmonary artery cat...

A case of 60-year-old male with acute pulmonary embolism without hypotension but signs of right ventricular dysfunction and elevated cardiac biomarkers is reported in this study. The patient comes under intermediate high-risk category and was successfully thrombolysed with alteplase infused through pulmonary artery catheter. Catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) can be considered as much safer a...

Mansour and colleagues recommend not routinely using the pulmonary artery catheter to guide hemodynamic management in the intensive care unit, because the perceived benefits are largely intangible [1]. Pulmonary artery catheter monitoring of the right ventricular ejection fraction (RVef) and of the right ventricular end-diastolic volume (EDV), however, reflects powerful yet underutilized relati...

(Chest 1992; 101:1429-33) T he pulmonary artery catheter was first described in 1970 l)y Swan, Ganz and associates. ‘ During the next decade, it rapidly evolved from a research device into a clinical tool. The pulmonary artery catheter has been successfully used for determination of cardiac output and other hemodynamic parameters to aid the clinical assessment of critically ill patients. In the...