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The conductance method employs a multielectrode catheter to measure intracavitary electric conductance from which left ventricular volume is estimated. A dual-excitation method introduced by us uses a more homogeneous electric field and thereby should enable more accurate volume estimation. In six anesthetized open-chest dogs we compared stroke volume obtained from electromagnetic flow probes with the conventional single-excitation method and with the new dual-excitation conductance method. Caval occlusion and left atrial hemorrhage were used to obtain a wide range of stroke volumes. The slope of the relation between stroke volume calculated from the flow probes and from the conductance catheter increased significantly (P < 0.001) from 0.635 with single excitation to 0.835 with dual excitation, but the interanimal variability was not reduced. The linearity of the relation was substantially improved.
Steendijk et al. (Tue,) studied this question.