“No monitoring device can improve patient-centered outcomes unless it is coupled to a treatment that improves outcome. ” Michael Pinsky Introduction The Danish anesthetist Bjørn Ibsen first pioneered the intensive…
We take for granted the relative ease that we are now able to measure the rate at which the heart pumps blood, better known as the cardiac output. It is…
Systolic function and measurement of the ejection fraction are often the primary focus of assessments of the health status of the left ventricle (LV). However, the physiologic events occurring during…
1. Cardiac Output and Shunt Determination (see Chapter 3 ). A. Fick’s Principle. “The total uptake or release of a substance by an organ is the product of the blood…
Despite the exhortations of poets and philosophers, the heart is, after all, simply a pump. The ability to “look into any man’s heart” with the goal of understanding the function…
Key points • Fossa ovalis is a depression on the right atrial side of interatrial septum. It is an embryonic remnant of a once patent channel between the right and…
Key points • Cardiac tumors in adults are rare and most of them are benign. • The benign cardiac tumors include cardiac myxoma, fibroma, rhabdomyoma, papillary fibroelastoma, hemangioma, lipoma, hamartoma,…
Key points • Pericardial tumors can be benign or malignant. Of the benign pericardial tumors, pericardial cysts are the most common. Other benign pericardial tumors include angiomas, lymphangiomas, fibromas, teratomas,…
Key points • Fetal cardiac tumors are extremely rare and most are benign. • They tend to appear between 20 and 30 weeks of pregnancy. • The most common types…
Key points • The most common benign cardiac tumors are myxomas. Arising from a stalk attached to the fossa ovalis membrane, myxomas are generally found in the left atrium. •…
