Applied cardiovascular physiology

Abstract

Intensive care medicine revolves around the titration of therapies aimed at supporting the cardiovascular system, respiratory gas exchange and internal homeostasis. The cardiovascular system in particular has had much attention focused on itself because of its immediacy in maintaining homeostasis. Diagnostic approaches or therapies based on data derived from invasive hemodynamic monitoring complete this picture of the monitoring and care for critically ill patients. Although invasive hemodynamic monitoring includes arterial, central venous, and pulmonary arterial catheterization, generally speaking, measures of cardiac output, pulmonary artery occlusion pressure (Ppao), mixed venous O₂ saturation (SvO₂) and mean arterial pressure are used to assess hemodynamic stability, or the ddequacy of the hemodynamic response in stress states. Although specific combinations of hemodynamic variables often reflect certain disease states, there may be considerable overlap of hemodynamic data sets among markedly different pathological states, which unfortunately may require different therapies.