The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 71, 250-252, Copyright © 1976 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Bedside hemodynamic monitoring. Its value in the diagnosis of tamponade complicating cardiac surgery
KR Weeks, K Chatterjee, S Block, JM Matloff and HJ Swan
Cardiac tamponade may be a difficult clinical diagnosis in the early
postoperative period in patients undergoing open-hear surgery, particularly
when the anterior or lateral pericardium is left open. Bedside monitoring
of intracardiac pressures and determination of a "pressure plateau" between
right atrial, right ventricular diastolic, pulmonary arterial diastolic,
and pulmonary capillary wedge pressures are useful in the early diagnosis
of cardiac tamponade. The value of such hemodynamic monitoring in the
diagnosis and treatment of cardiac tamponade in three patients with
aorta-coronary artery bypass surgery in the early postoperative period is
reported. Appropriate therapy, carried out on the basis of these studies,
minimized the occurrence of further morbidity or possible death.
