Abstract
A practical method of breath-by-breath monitoring of metabolic gas exchange has previously been developed by GE Healthcare and can now be easily incorporated into existing anaesthetic and critical care monitoring (M-COVX). Previous research using this device has shown good accuracy and precision between the M-COVX measurements and a traditional measurement of gas uptake at the mouth and also against the reverse Fick method during cardiac surgery and critical care, but its accuracy in the paediatric situation and across a range of ventilatory settings awaits validation. We tested the M-COVX metabolic monitor in the laboratory comparing its measurement to a traditional Haldane transformation across a wide range of oxygen consumption values, from 50 ml/minute to just under 300 ml/minute, typical of those expected in anaesthetised adults and children. The M-COVX device showed acceptable accuracy with an overall mean bias of −3.3% (range −15.1 to +4.2%, P=0.21). Excellent linearity was found, by y=0.96x + 0.5 ml/minute, r=0.99. The device showed acceptable robustness to ventilatory changes examined, including changes in respiratory rate, I:E ratio, FiO2, up to 75% and simulated spontaneous breathing. However, any induced leak from around the simulated endotracheal tube caused a significant error in paediatric scenarios.