A New Method for the Determination of the Area Under a Cardiac Output Curve

An equation of a continuous curve having the general form of the cardiac output curve has been derived in a logical fashion. The resulting equation of this curve originating at the origin is y = y p (x/x p ) m exp (1 - (x/x p ) m ) where y and x are the vertical and horizontal components of the curve, y p and x p are the vertical and horizontal displacements of the curve at its peak, and m is a positive constant to be determined for each curve. This equation is integrated to determine the area under the curve it represents and appropriate substitutions are employed, with the result that the equation for the area is reduced to area = y p x p W where W is determined from a table included in the text.