Echocardiography as a guide for fluid management

Background: In critically ill patients at risk for organ failure, the administration of intravenous fluids has equal chances of resulting in benefit or harm. While the intent of intravenous fluid is to increase cardiac output and oxygen delivery, unwelcome results in those patients who do not increase their cardiac output are tissue edema, hypoxemia, and excess mortality. Here we briefly review bedside methods to assess fluid responsiveness, focusing upon the strengths and pitfalls of echocardiography in spontaneously breathing mechanically ventilated patients as a means to guide fluid management. We also provide new data to help clinicians anticipate bedside echocardiography findings in vasopressor-dependent, volume-resuscitated patients. Objective: To review bedside ultrasound as a method to judge whether additional intravenous fluid will increase cardiac output. Special emphasis is placed on the respiratory effort of the patient. Conclusions: Point-of-care echocardiography has the unique ability to screen for unexpected structural findings while providing a quantifiable probability of a patient’s cardiovascular response to fluids. Measuring changes in stroke volume in response to either passive leg raising or changes in thoracic pressure during controlled mechanical ventilation offer good performance characteristics but may be limited by operator skill, arrhythmia, and open lung ventilation strategies. Measuring changes in vena caval diameter induced by controlled mechanical ventilation demands less training of the operator and performs well during arrythmia. In modern delivery of critical care, however, most patients are nursed awake, even during mechanical ventilation. In patients making respiratory efforts we suggest that ventilator settings must be standardized before assessing this promising technology as a guide for fluid management.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCCritical Care Medicine, Division ofMedicine, Department ofReviewedFacult

Will this hemodynamically unstable patient respond to a bolus of intravenous fluids?

IMPORTANCE Fluid overload occurring as a consequence of overly aggressive fluid resuscitation may adversely affect outcome in hemodynamically unstable critically ill patients. Therefore, following the initial fluid resuscitation, it is important to identify which patients will benefit from further fluid administration. OBJECTIVE To identify predictors of fluid responsiveness in hemodynamically unstable patients with signs of inadequate organ perfusion. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION Search of MEDLINE and EMBASE (1966 to June 2016) and reference lists from retrieved articles, previous reviews, and physical examination textbooks for studies that evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of tests to predict fluid responsiveness in hemodynamically unstable adult patients who were defined as having refractory hypotension, signs of organ hypoperfusion, or both. Fluid responsiveness was defined as an increase in cardiac output following intravenous fluid administration. DATA EXTRACTION Two authors independently abstracted data (sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios [LRs]) and assessed methodological quality. A bivariate mixed-effects binary regression model was used to pool the sensitivities, specificities, and LRs across studies. RESULTS A total of 50 studies (N = 2260 patients) were analyzed. In all studies, indices were measured before assessment of fluid responsiveness. The mean prevalence of fluid responsiveness was 50% (95%CI, 42%-56%). Findings on physical examination were not predictive of fluid responsiveness with LRs and 95%CIs for each finding crossing 1.0. A low central venous pressure (CVP) (mean threshold 8mmHg) was associated with fluid responsiveness (positive LR, 2.6 [95%CI, 1.4-4.6]; pooled specificity, 76%), but a CVP greater than the threshold made fluid responsiveness less likely (negative LR, 0.50 [95%CI, 0.39-0.65]; pooled sensitivity, 62%). Respiratory variation in vena cava diameter measured by ultrasound (distensibility index >15%) predicted fluid responsiveness in a subgroup of patients without spontaneous respiratory efforts (positive LR, 5.3 [95%CI, 1.1-27]; pooled specificity, 85%). Patients with less vena cava distensibility were not as likely to be fluid responsive (negative LR, 0.27 [95%CI, 0.08-0.87]; pooled sensitivity, 77%). Augmentation of cardiac output or related parameters following passive leg raising predicted fluid responsiveness (positive LR, 11 [95%CI, 7.6-17]; pooled specificity, 92%). Conversely, the lack of an increase in cardiac output with passive leg raising identified patients unlikely to be fluid responsive (negative LR, 0.13 [95%CI, 0.07-0.22]; pooled sensitivity, 88%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Passive leg raising followed by measurement of cardiac output or related parameters may be the most useful test for predicting fluid responsiveness in hemodynamically unstable adults. The usefulness of respiratory variation in the vena cava requires confirmatory studies