[Update of the pulmonary artery catheter in cardiac surgery]

The pulmonary Artery Catheter was introduced 30 years ago in the clinical practice, one of the main uses is cardiac surgery. There are attempts to substitute hemodynamic values obtained by the catheter with the use of noninvasive devices but none has successfully used, there are several controversy areas based in the utility of the catheter, finding contradictory literature reports, most studies reefers generally to the surgical patient, there are no studies in cardiac surgery, several groups have published statements, they recommended a indication tailored to the hemodynamic status and three interrelated variables to be assessed; patient factors, procedure factors and practice setting factors. The conclusion is the pulmonary artery catheter is only a monitoring device, the value of the hemodiynamic parameters obtained lies in the medical team.