Location of Catheter Tip and Its Impact on Central Venous Pressure

¹ Assistant Chief, Surgical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri

Monitoring of the central venous pressure is a simple, relatively inexpensive method of assessing a patient's cardiac status, circulating blood volume, and vasomotor tone. Although it is a measure of considerable value in patients with cardiac, vascular pulmonary, renal, or other acute problems, for regulation of fluid or blood administration, it is essential that the physicians and nurses be fully aware and take into consideration some of the inherent fallacies and inadequacies of the information derived. Inaccurate measurements are often obtained by the aberrant lodgment of the venous pressure catheter tip, in addition to the other well-known complications. Radiographic identification of the catheter tip is essential to eliminate these problems.