Is there a role for invasive hemodynamic monitoring in acute heart failure management?

The place of invasive hemodynamic monitoring in patients with acute heart failure is still debated, even though frequently used. Invasive techniques, which include the pulmonary artery catheter and transpulmonary thermodilution, provide important information on cardiac output and intravascular pressures or volume. These techniques should be used in combination with echocardiography and allow nurse-driven semicontinuous hemodynamic monitoring. These techniques are useful not only in the diagnosis of circulatory or respiratory failure but also for the evaluation of the effects of therapies. Admittedly, large-scale randomized trials failed to demonstrate a survival benefit with the pulmonary artery catheter (and were even not yet performed with transpulmonary thermodilution). However, these trials may be subjected to selection bias, as patients from recruiting centers not included in the trial but receiving the pulmonary artery catheter were more severe and had higher mortality rates than patient included in the trial. Hence, invasive techniques may still have a place in selected patients with acute circulatory failure and especially in the most severe cases.