Point-of-care sensor technology for critical care applications

There is still a need for improvements in the way one measures blood flow. Cardiac output is a fundamental physiological parameter and one that changes rapidly in the patient i.e. it is suitable for attention as a point-of-care (POC) measurement. Its accurate measurement with thermodilution comes at a high cost both clinically and financially. An ideal system would be less invasive, quicker, more cost effective and ultimately continuous. It is the authors´ feeling that an improved indicator dilution method provides the first step towards the development of a continuous cardiac output (CCO) system. This has been described. The second step is to critically evaluate the synergy of the lithium indicator dilution cardiac output (LiDCO) system with a number of potentially continuous technologies. Early research on such combination technology suggests that a CCO system may be developed from combining the LiDCO system with a continuous technology based on arterial pressure waveform analysis