Heart & lung : the journal of critical care
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Invasive procedures such as cardiac surgery are associated with perioperative dysfunction of macrocirculation and/or microcirculation and organ failures. Maintenance or resuscitation of an adequate macrocirculation and/or microcirculation is thus crucial in patients after cardiac surgery. We investigated the prognostic power of early central venous-arterial carbon dioxide pressure difference (delta-pCO2) after cardiac surgery. ⋯ In a retrospective data analysis in a large sample of adult post cardiac surgery patients treated in the ICU, we observed that admission central venous-arterial delta-pCO2 independently predicts ICU mortality. Delta-pCO2 might thus contribute risk stratification in ICU patients after cardiac surgery.