A comparison of pulmonary and femoral artery thermodilution cardiac indices in paediatric intensive care patients.

We have assessed the agreement between pulmonary artery and femoral artery (COLD) thermodilution measurements of the cardiac index (Cl) in a group of paediatric intensive care patients. The COLD method gave consistently higher cardiac index values than the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC); however, the difference was small, with a mean value of 0.19 l/min-1 m-2 or 4.4% of the mean cardiac index. This difference is not clinically important and suggests that, under these circumstances, the COLD system provides an acceptable alternative to the pulmonary artery catheter for measurement of the cardiac index at the bedside.