Indwelling pulmonary artery catheters. Their relationship to aspetic thrombotic endocardial vegetations
N. L. Pace and W. Horton
To assess the incidence of aseptic thrombotic endocardial vegetations (TEV)
after pulmonary artery catheterization with Swan-Ganz catheters we reviewed
all autopsy reports for a two-year period in our hospital. In 413 autopsies
there were five instances of aseptic TEV: 3 in 88 patients with Swan-Ganz
catheters, 1 in 120 patients with central venous catheters, and 1 in the
205 patients without central vascular catheters. The incidence of TEV is
significantly greater in patients with Swan-Ganz catheters than in other
patients.
