Arterial lines in the field? You’ve got to be nuts, or…..French! Yep, the SAMU boys and girls put in 94 arterial lines in pre-hospital cases over two years, and found big differences between invasive and non-invasive arterial pressures in systolic and diastolic pressures. What about mean pressures though, which we’d expect to be more closely correlated? They didn’t say. An interesting paper, but I don’t think I can use it.
Emerg Med J. 2009 Mar;26(3):210-2
Invasive arterial blood pressure monitoring in an out-of-hospital setting: an observational study