Validation study of PulseCO system for continuous cardiac output measurement.

Ultrasonic flow probes have been used to optimize biventricular pacing immediately after cardiopulmonary bypass, improving cardiac output (CO) by 10%; however, flow probes must be removed with chest closure. The PulseCO system (LiDCO Limited, Cambridge, UK) may extend optimization into the postoperative period, but controlled validations have not been reported. Six anesthetized pigs were instrumented for right heart bypass.

Intracranial complications of preinjury anticoagulation in trauma patients with head injury.

Background: We have evaluated our recent experience as a Level I trauma center to test the hypothesis that preinjury anticoagulation adversely affects the morbidity and mortality of trauma patients with an intracranial injury.

Methods: Records of 380 patients admitted to the trauma service from January 1997 to December 1998 who at the time of admission were taking warfarin, low-molecular-weight heparin, aspirin, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, clopidogrel, dipyridamole, pentoxifylline, or naproxen were reviewed. Thirty-seven patients with intracranial injuries were identified and compared with a matched (age, gender, mechanism, and severity of injury) control group of 37 patients with similar head injury but not taking any anticoagulant randomly selected from the trauma registry for that same time period.

High-flow venovenous rewarming for the correction of hypothermia in a canine model of hypovolemic shock.

Background: Continuous arteriovenous rewarming (CAVR) has been shown to effectively reverse hypothermia; however, its use is limited in the setting of profound hypotension. We have evaluated the effectiveness of high-flow venovenous rewarming (HFVR) using bypass for the correction of hypothermia in a hypotensive canine model and compared these results to CAVR.

Methods: Eight dogs, randomly assigned to either HFVR or CAVR, were cooled to a core temperature of 29.