An intensivist on a learning frenzy. Caring for the critically ill using evidence-based medicine.
Welcome to the blog post version of the Saving Lives Podcast. In this post, I'm going to be discussing the aortic pulsatility index. Chances are you've never heard of this before. The reality is that I honestly had never heard of this before either. I ran into it been going down my rabbit hole of …
Continue reading Aortic Pulsatility Index (API): Optimizing Cardiogenic Shock Management
Mortality for patients in cardiogenic shock is finally improving to be less than 50%. It had been hovering at 50% for decades. Would floating a Swan Ganz catheter, also known as a Pulmonary Artery Catheter improve outcomes in Cardiogenic Shock? The ESCAPE trial took the winds out of the sails of the Swan-Ganz enthusiasts in …
Continue reading Cardiogenic Shock & Swan-Ganz/Pulmonary Artery Catheters
To not fly blind in patients with advanced heart failure or cardiogenic shock, certain equations exist to help us manage our patients. This helps us identify who is not doing well and act on their deterioration before it really hits the fan. We use cardiac power output (CPO), which I have dissected in THIS POST, …
Continue reading Pulmonary Artery Pulsatility Index (PAPi): Principles & Calculation
There are few options when it comes to right ventricular support for patients who are in right heart failure from a multitude of etiologies. At the time of this writing, we are limited to two temporary percutaneous right ventricular assist devices (RVAD) to assist our patients with this problem: the Impella RP and the Protek …
Continue reading Protek Duo Right Ventricular Assist Device (RVAD) ProtekDuo
