Comparison Of Ultrasonic Cardiac Output Monitor(USCOM) And Pulse Indicator Continuous Cardiac Output (PICCO) In Cardiac Output

Objective:USCOM is an ultrasound-based method which has been accepted for noninvasive hemodynamic monitoring in clinical conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the USCOM device in cardiac output compared with the PiCCO technique on the patients.Methods:We conducted a prospective observational study in Emergency Intensive Care Unit in Peking Union Medical College Hospital from Sep1st,2012to Dec31st,2013. Thirty patierntswho were diagnosed septic shock were recruited in this study. We evaluated the USCOM monitor by comparing its cardiac output with paired measurements obtained by the PiCCO technique.Results:Thirty paired left-sided CO measurements (transaortic access) were obtained. The mean CO-USCOM were5.54L/min (±1.48)versus CO-PiCCO5.91L/min (±1.32). The correlation coefficient was r=0.93. Comparison by Bland-Altman analysis revealed a bias of-0.37L/min (±0.54L/min) leading to a mean percentage error of20%.Conclusion:USCOM is a feasible and rapid method to evaluate CO in septic shock patients. USCOM does reliably represent CO values as compared to the reference technique based on thermodilution (PiCCO) in the Emergency Intensive Care Unit in our Hospital. It seems to be appropriate in situations where CO measurements are most pertinent to patient management.