[Is the pulmonary artery catheter discredited because of ignorance?]

Recently in an observational study the use of a pulmonary artery catheter in critically ill patients was associated with an increase in both mortality and utilization of resources when compared with case-matched control patients. The authors corrected for selection bias by using a propensity score. The publication of this article elicited a flood of commentary in both medical journals and the lay press. Critical assessment of this study and other studies about pulmonary artery catheterization in our opinion supports the view that it is probably not the use of the catheter itself, but physicians' insufficient knowledge of right heart catheterization and the specific treatment resulting from its use that is at fault.