The hemodynamic evaluation of cardiogenic shock obtained via a Swan-Ganz catheter plays an essential role in the characterization of cardiogenic shock patients. Join Dr. Nosheen Reza, (Assistant Professor of Medicine and Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant cardiologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania), episode fellow lead Dr. Brian McCauley (Interventional and Critical Care Fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Mark Belkin (Cardiac Critical Care Series Co-Chair and AHFT fellow at University of Chicago), and CardioNerds Co-Founders, Amit Goyal and Dan Ambinder, for this tour through the heart aboard the Swan-Ganz catheter. In this episode, we evaluate three separate admissions for a single patient to highlight pearls regarding waveform assessment, evaluating cardiac output, phenotyping hemodynamic profiles, targeted therapies based on hemodynamics and so much more. Episode introduction and audio editing by Dr. Gurleen Kaur (Director of the CardioNerds Internship).
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Pearls • Notes • References • Guest Profiles • Production Team
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Pearls and Quotes - Hemodynamic Evaluation of Cardiogenic Shock
Swan-Ganz catheters are not dead #ReviveTheSwan! They remain a useful tool to characterize cardiac patients & to help direct therapy, especially in Cardiogenic Shock.When looking at Swan-Ganz catheter data, it is important to always interpret your own tracings, to know what values are acquired directly, and which values are derived.It is important to understand the strengths and weakness of hemodynamic characterization by Swan-Ganz cathetersAdvanced metrics such as cardiac power output, pulmonary artery pulsatility index, and aortic pulsatility index are extremely useful in further phenotyping patients as well as guiding mechanical support platforms“The data will be wrong if the preparation is not right”
Show notes - Hemodynamic Evaluation of Cardiogenic Shock
1. Swan-Ganz catheters are a useful tool to characterize cardiac patients and to direct therapy.
With the ESCAPE trial in 2004, Swan-Ganz catheter utilization dropped drastically outside transplant centers across the United States (2). While the ESCAPE trial did demonstrate the possibility of harm when using a Swan-Ganz catheter, many of the truly ill cardiac patients we care for would have been excluded from the trial. For instance, patients on dobutamine at doses above 3 µg/kg/min or any dose of milrinone during the hospitalization were excluded from the trial.This is a classic example of “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”In a recent large, multicenter cardiogenic shock registry, complete hemodynamic assessment using pulmonary artery catheters prior to MCS is associated with lower in-hospital mortality compared with incomplete or no assessment (3).
2. When looking at Swan-Ganz catheter data, it is important to always interpret your own tracings, to know what values are acquired directly, and which values are derived.
Incomplete or incorrect data can lead to mischaracterization of our patients. Therefore, it is essential to review all of the tracings, calculations, and data acquired for each individual patient before any clinical adjustments are made (1). An incomplete pulmonary capillary wedge tracing is an example from clinical practice (causing the PCWP, and therefore the left-sided filling pressures to be overestimated). It is equally important to know the limitations of cardiac output equations, and that no one measurement is perfect.Foibles of the Fick equation include assumed rather than measured oxygen consumption and variations in hemoglobin concentration. Traditionally,
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