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Catheter, Swan-Ganz: A thin, flexible tube that is inserted through one of the large veins (the inferior or superior vena cava) that return blood to the heart. The catheter is flow-directed. It uses a balloon to carry it through the vena cava to the heart, through the right side of the heart (the right atrium and right ventricle) to the pulmonary artery. Once there, the catheter is purposely positioned in a small branch of the pulmonary artery. Then a pressure called the pulmonary wedge pressure is measured in front of the temporarily inflated and wedged balloon.
The catheter is named for the American cardiologists Harold James C. Swan (1922-) and William Ganz (1919-) who designed it for this purpose.
The Swan-Ganz thermodilution catheter provides right heart diagnostic information to rapidly determine hemodynamic pressures, cardiac output, and mixed venous blood ...
Swan-Ganz catheterization is the passing of a thin tube (catheter) into the right side of the heart and the arteries leading to the lungs to monitor the ...
The flow-directed balloon-tipped pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) (also known as the Swan-Ganz or right heart catheter) has been in clinical use for more than ...
Swan-Ganz Catheters Author - Henry Geiter, Jr, RN, CCRN Introduction. R. ecent research shows that a significant portion of doctors and nurses who work with pulmonary artery ...
Flow-directed pulmonary artery catheters (also called Swan-Ganz catheters) can perform many functions including the following:The insertion of pulmonary artery catheters ...