Franck Verschuren

Volumetric Capnography for Pulmonary Embolism in Emergency Medicine: Diagnosis and Therapeutic Monitoring Franck Verschuren

Capnography, either time-based or volume-based, has been available in the clinical setting for more than 30 years, and has been evaluated in numerous conditions where CO2 production, transport and elimination were involved. Even if many scientific societies have recommended its use as a monitoring parameter in anesthesiology, intensive care or the emergency room, there are still few formal recommendations on the use of capnography as a diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic tool. Two explanations support this statement: first, such applications for capnography deserve a full validation process; secondly, testing CO2 kinetics in other ways than by monitoring is the specific domain of Volumetric Capnography (VCap), which is still an emerging technology. These obstacles probably explain why VCap is still at the border between clinical research and clinical practice. We considered this work as necessary steps in the way of overcoming those two obstacles. Indeed, we completed a full first step evaluation of Vcap as a potential diagnostic tool in pulmonary embolism (PE), as well as a therapeutic monitoring tool during thrombolysis for this disease.