Monitoring of hypovolemia

Hypovolemia, the inadequacy of the intravascular blood volume, still remains a diagnostic challenge for the anesthesiologist and critical care physician. Conventional hemodynamic parameters, such as blood pressure, heart rate, and even central venous pressure (CVP) and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), have been shown repeatedly to be insensitive and misleading in the assessment of effective blood volume. Therefore, newer monitoring methods are constantly being introduced. This review will re-examine the current role of conventional and new parameters in the diagnostic challenge of hypovolemia detection.