• Samuel Delerme, Yonathan Freund, Robin Renault, Catherine Devilliers, Samuel Castro, Sebastien Chopin, Gaelle Juillien, Bruno Riou, and Patrick Ray.
• Department of Emergency Medicine and Surgery, Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire Pitié-Salpêtrière, Assistance-Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, 75013 Paris, UPMC- Univ Paris 6, France.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2010 Jul 1;28(6):711-4.

BackgroundEnd-tidal carbon dioxide pressure (etCO(2)) is widely used in anaesthesia and critical care in intubated patients. The aim of our preliminary study was to evaluate the feasibility of a simple device to predict capnia in spontaneously breathing patients in an emergency department (ED).Patients And MethodsThis study was a prospective, nonblind study performed in our teaching hospital ED. We included nonintubated patients with dyspnea (> or =18 years) requiring measurement of arterial blood gases, as ordered by the emergency physician in charge. There were no exclusion criteria. End-tidal CO(2) was measured by an easy-to-use device connected to a microstream capnometer, which gave a continuous measurement and graphical display of the etCO(2) level of a patient's exhaled breath.ResultsA total of 43 patients (48 measurements) were included, and the majority had pneumonia (n = 12), acute cardiac failure (n = 8), asthma (n = 7), or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation (n = 6). Using simple linear regression, the correlation between etCO(2) and Paco(2) was good (R = 0.82). However, 18 measurements (38%) had a difference between etCO(2) and Paco(2) of 10 mm Hg or more. The mean difference between the Paco(2) and etCO(2) levels was 8 mm Hg. Using the Bland and Altman matrix, the limits of agreement were -10 to +26 mm Hg.ConclusionIn our preliminary study, etCO(2) using a microstream method does not seem to accurately predict Paco(2) in patients presenting to an ED for acute dyspnea.Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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