Cardiac output: Fick Principle

Developed by Adolf Fick, the Fick Principle can determine cardiac output if an investigator knows what amount of a substance is taken up by an organ (or whole body) in a unit of time, the concentration of the substance in the arterial blood supplying the organ (or whole body), and the concentration of the venous blood leaving the organ (or returning from the body). Most commonly, oxygen is the substance used for calculations. [More…]