New Noninvasive Method for the Assessment of Central Venous Oxygen Saturations in Critically Ill Patients

Objectives: To compare noninvasive external jugular vein oxygen saturations (SjvO2) and central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) from a blood sample in patients admitted to the intensive care unit. Design: A prospective, comparative, monocentric clinical trial design was used. Setting: The study was performed in the Department of Anaesthesiology, Pharmacology, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of Geneva (Switzerland). Participants: A total of 79 patients were enrolled; patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection requiring invasive mechanical ventilation (patients with COVID-19, n = 36) and patients after liver transplantation (posttransplant patients, n = 43). Interventions: Simultaneous measurement of SjvO2 by near-infrared spectroscopy and ScvO2 from central venous blood samples using a blood gas analyzer in stable hemodynamic conditions. Measurements and Main Results: A strong linear correlation was evidenced in both the COVID-19 and posttransplant patient groups between the 2 modalities. The Bland -Altman analysis showed low bias in accordance with low percentage error in both groups (0.57% and 8.09% for patients with COVID-19; 0.00% and 13.72% for posttransplant patients). Conclusions: Central venous oxygen saturation can be estimated reasonably by the continuous noninvasive measurement of SjvO2 using near -infrared spectroscopy. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)