[The connection between myocardial oxygen partial pressure and intragastric CO2--three cases]

In patients after heart surgery gastric mucosal pH registration via tonometry gains increasing importance. Furthermore it is possible to place an intramyocardial probe into the myocardium to observe the intramyocardial partial oxygen tension for several days. From the observations in the three patients evaluated in this study we have reason to believe that within the context of cardiac surgery intragastral CO2 may be an indicator of intramyocardial partial oxygen tension. In these three patients pathological intragastral CO2 values are accompanied with those in pathological intramyocardial PTIO2. The efficiency of therapeutical measures--such as volume and catecholamine substitution--can be documented by monitoring intragastral CO2 and intramyocardial PTIO2. It needs to be established whether intragastral CO2 is a parameter responding earlier than intramyocardial PTIO2 as is suggested by the findings in these three patients.