Review Article

Appreciating the Strengths and Weaknesses of Transthoracic Echocardiography in Hemodynamic Assessments

Table 2

Limitations of cardiac output measurements in ICU by TTE.

Cannot provide continuous monitoring
Measurements and accuracies can be affected by:
 (i) Patient’s position
  (ii) Patient’s condition: for example, lung hyperinflation,
  cutaneous emphysema, trauma, wound
  (iii) Effects of mechanical ventilation
  (iv) Suboptimal ultrasound windows: poor image quality
  (v) Heart plane motion during measurements
  (vi) Doppler angle error: poor angle alignment
  (vii) Arrhythmias