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.