Author(s)

Marina Arad, Avraham Adunsky, Sharon Zlochiver, Ofer Barnea, Shimon Abboud

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Regular monitoring of pulmonary congestion in car-diogenic pulmonary edema (CPE) patients is neces-sary for its adequate management via pharmaceuti-cal treatment. It is well known that the development of CPE is accompanied with an increase in hema-tocrit, plasma protein concentration and colloid os-motic pressure due to the decrease in the plasma volume. In the present study the mean left and right lung resistivity values taken pre- and post treatment with diuretics using a hybrid bio-impedance electri-cal impedance tomography system were correlate to the measured changes in hematocrit level. A marginal significant correlation was found between the abso-lute mean lung resistivity and hematocrit levels (Pearson’s correlation coefficient of R = 0.4, p-value = 0.057). When the change in the mean lung resistivity of a patient was plotted vs. the change in hematocrit readout, a significant linear correlation was found (R = 0.7, p-value = 0.02). These results support the validity of the resistivity measurements using bio-impedance system in monitoring changes of pulmonary edema in CPE patients.

Bio-impedance; Parametric EIT; Cardiogenic Pulmonary Edema; Hematocrit

Arad, M. , Adunsky, A. , Zlochiver, S. , Barnea, O. and Abboud, S. (2011) Hematocrit level correlates with lungs resistivity in elderly patients with cardiogenic pulmonary edema. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 4, 76-81. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2011.41010.