Pulmonary-artery catheters

Executive Summary

PACs offer no benefit in guiding major abdominal, thoracic, vascular or hip-fracture surgeries in high-risk elderly patients, according to a study by James Sandham, MD, University of Calgary, et al., published in the Jan. 2 New England Journal of Medicine. The study evaluated mortality in 1,994 elderly patients undergoing major surgery, randomized to groups with and without PACs. Among those whose surgery included a PAC, 7.8% died in the hospital compared with 7.7% of patients treated without it...