Central venous pressure in femoral catheter: correlation with superior approach after heart surgery.

Objective: It is common to obtain femoral venous approach in patients undergoing combined heart surgery or as an alternative to superior approach (internal jugular vein or subclavian vein). The aim of this study was to compare the measures of central venous pressure (CVP) at two different sites (superior versus femoral).

Methods: We prospectively and openly allocated 60 patients who underwent heart surgery between July from November 2006.