RÉSUMÉ

Cardiac output is measured by placing a double lumen catheter with a thermistor on the tip through the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, injecting cold saline into the right atrium, and integrating the resulting pulmonary artery temperature profile. If a similar procedure is performed with thermistors located in the right atrium, right ventricle, and pulmonary artery, the resulting temperature curves are determined by the known or easily measured quantities: injectate temperature, injectate volume, heart rate, systolic time interval, body temperature, and time in the cardiac cycle at which injection begins and the unknown quantities: right atrial, right ventricular, pulmonary artery mean and stroke volumes, inflow and outflow valve regurgitation rates, and cardiac output. A digital computer program using a lumped parameter model has been developed to use these quantities to produce thermal dilution curves and optimize the fit of the model curves to the temperature curves from the thermal dilution measurement to determine the unknown quantities. The program is used to investigate the effects of measuring system time constant, heat transfer, and noise on the accuracy of these measurements. The results indicate that the method is practical.