Sv̄O2 Monitoring in Anesthesia and Postoperative Intensive Care

The great progress of anesthesia has allowed to perform surgery in patients with often severe cardiopathies. In such patients, the use of an appropriate anesthetic protocol and sometimes anti-ischemic drugs during the operative period has reduced the operative risks. The development of per- and postoperative cardiovascular monitoring techniques has played an important role in the prevention of cardiovascular accidents which menace coronary artery patients during the operative period. The studies of Wells & Kaplan [1] followed by those of Rao et al. [2] have clearly demonstrated that monitoring of cardiac output and ventricular filling pressured vcia a Swan-Ganz catheter clearly reduced the incidence of postoperative acute myocardial necrosis in patients operated less than six months following a first infarction.