Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
-
Multicenter Study Observational Study
Can transcutaneous carbon dioxide pressure be a surrogate of blood gas samples for spontaneously breathing emergency patients? The ERNESTO experience.
It is known that the arterial carbon dioxide pressure (PaCO2) is useful for emergency physicians to assess the severity of dyspnoeic spontaneously breathing patients. Transcutaneous carbon dioxide pressure (PtcCO2) measurements could be a non-invasive alternative to PaCO2 measurements obtained by blood gas samples, as suggested in previous studies. This study evaluates the reliability of a new device in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Our results show that PtcCO2 measured by the TCM4 device could not replace PaCO2 obtained by arterial blood gas analysis.