Gas mixing apparatus for determining cardiac output by CO2 rebreathing

The carbon dioxide rebreathing technique is widely used for determination of cardiac output during exercise. The equilibration method of Collier et at. (J. Appl. Physiol. 9:25, 1956) is generally preferred over the exponential method of Defares (J. Appl. Physiol. 13:159, 1968). However, the equilibration method requires the volume and initial CO2 percentage in the rebreathing bag to be adjusted according to the work rate. A device for mixing two gases (100% O2 and 20% CO2/80% O2) was constructed for this purpose. Multistage regulators are attached to the gas tanks and connected to a medical gas mixer via high-pressure air hoses. A variable time-delay switch causes a solenoid valve to open for 1.0-10s to deliver a predetermined gas volume. The device was found to accurately deliver a preset volume and concentration of gas to the rebreathing bag. A gas mixing apparatus simplifies the equilibration CO2 rebreathing technique by allowing the investigator to easily select the initial volume and percentage of CO2.