The Pulse Contour Method
Pulse Pressure (PP) methods measure the pressure in the arteries over time to derive a waveform and use this information to calculate cardiac performance. The problem is that any measure from the artery includes the changes in pressure associated with changes in arterial function.
Physiologic or therapeutic changes in vessel diameter will be assumed to reflect changes in Cardiac Output. PP methods measure the combined performance of the heart and the vessels thus limiting the application of PCM methods for measurement of Cardiac Output. This can be partially compensated by intermittent calibration of the waveform to another Cardiac Output measurement method and then monitoring the PP waveform so ideally the PP waveform should be calibrated beat to beat as MostCare does.
