Non-invasive determination of cardiac output by transesophageal Doppler ultrasound-clinical application and validation

The authors describe the development and validation of a device using transesophageal (TE) Doppler ultrasound to provide continuous and noninvasive monitoring of cardiac output (CO) and related parameters. In intubated and artificially ventilated patients who underwent pulmonary artery catherization for hemodynamic monitoring, CO was determined by the esophageal Doppler ultrasound probe and compared to the results obtained simultaneously by means of thermodilution. A very close correlation was found between the results (r=0.99), with a standard estimate of error less than 5% as well as good reproducibility (r=0.96 and r=0.98)