Pulmonary Artery Pressure Without Simultaneously Measured Cardiac Output: A Serious Omission?

We congratulate Hinske et al. for demonstrating the role of a preoperative mean pulmonary arterial pressure and lung allocation score in predicting the need for extracorporeal circulation during lung transplantation.1 However, we are surprised by the absence of any data concerning anesthetic management, vascular filling, and especially preoperative cardiac output, measured during the assessment, or intraoperative cardiac output. How to highlight pulmonary arterial pressure without knowing the cardiac output measured simultaneously? High pulmonary arterial pressure can be explained by high cardiac output, and low pulmonary arterial pressure may be owing to a low cardiac output.
Source: Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research