Cardiac output has always been a subject of interest to both clinicians and researchers in different branches of medicine and surgery. In the last decade more attention has also been paid to its application in pediatrics, neonatology, fetal medicine and pregnancy. Better understanding of the peripheral circulation has provided more insight into the patholophysiology of different diseases. Many cardiac and non-cardiac disorders affect cardiac outputs. Monitoring of the changes in cardiac output is also important in the acutely ill patient. There are several methods to measure cardiac output, each with advantages and pitfalls.
This book deals with all relevant aspects of cardiac output in eight parts: part one describes the methods of measuring cardiac output and a comparison between the catheterisation based and the noninvasive techniques, while part two describes the changes in cardiac output due to physiological causes. Part three describes cardiac output in cardiac diseases and systemic hypertension. Cardiac output in acutely ill patients is discussed in part four. Effect of cardiac medications, temporary atrial pacing, permanent pacing, pharmacologic stress testing and anesthesia are covered in detail in part six, while changes in cardiac output in noncardiac diseases are described in part seven. Finally great attention has been paid in part eight to the regional circulation including cerebral, coronary, skeletal and splanchnic circulations. A separate chapter discusses in detail the dynamics of blood flow.
This book will be useful both to the cardiologists as well as to physicians in other fields of surgery and medicine and to their trainees. Readers will find this book an interesting and a useful reference on the topic of cardiac output.

Inhalt
One: Technical considerations.- 1. Determination of cardiac output by invasive methods.- 2. The use of echo-Doppler cardiography in measuring cardiac output.- 3. Measurement of cardiac output by magnetic resonance imaging.- 4. Measurement of cardiac output by nuclear techniques.- 5. Comparison between the invasive and noninvasive methods.- 6. Linear cardiac output.- Two: Cardiac output: physiological considerations. Cardiac output in normal subjects at rest and during exercise.- 7. Cardiac output: physiological concepts.- 8. Cardiac output in athletes and the effect of training.- 9. Cardiac output during exercise.- 10. Effect of age on cardiac output.- 11. Effect of blood rheology on cardiac output.- Three: Cardiac output in cardiac disease.- 12. Cardiac output in coronary artery disease.- 13. Cardiac output in valvular heart disease.- 14. Cardiac output in heart failure.- 15. Cardiac output in systemic hypertension.- Four: Cardiac output in the critically ill patient.- 16. Cardiac output in the critically ill surgical patient.- 17. Cardiac performance and systemic oxygen transport after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery.- 18. Cardiac output and hemodynamics of septic shock.- Five: Cardiac output: effect of intervention.- 19. Effect of medications on cardiac output.- 20. Changes in cardiac output during rapid atrial pacing.- 21. The hemodynamics of cardiac pacing.- 22. Cardiac output and coronary blood flow during pharmacologic stress testing.- 23. Cardiac output during anesthesia.- Six: Fetal circulation and cardiac output during pregnancy and in neonates.- 24. Maternal cardiac output in normal and complicated pregnancy.- 25. Fetal circulation and cardiac output.- 26. Neonatal cardiac output.- Seven: Cardiac output in non-cardiac diseases.- 27. Cardiac output in pulmonarydisease.- 28. Variables affecting cardiac output in endocrine disorders.- 29. Variables affecting cardiac output in obesity and diabetes.- Eight: Regional circulation.- 30. The coronary circulation.- 31. Dynamics of blood circulation.- 32. Skeletal muscle blood flow.- 33. The splanchnic circulation.- 34. Blood flow to the limbs.- 35. Carotid blood flow and pathogenesis of cerebral ischaemia.