EUROPEAN REVIEW FOR MEDICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL SCIENCES, cilt.18, sa.21, ss.3260-3266, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
OBJECTIVE: Assessing the left ventricular (LV) functions in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and those pediatric patients with compromised ventricular performance or enhanced systolic or diastolic load e.g. congestive heart failure, hypertension, dilated/hypertrophic cardiomyopathies is a real challenge. Currently used noninvasive methods fail giving quantitative measures to asses cardiac performance and do not allow evaluation of ventriculo-arterial interaction. Non-invasive method of cardiovascular performance determination by measuring left ventricle end-systolic elastance (Ees), arterial elastance (Ea) and the ventriculoarterial coupling (VAC), though interaction between LV and arterial network, is possible.