Assessment of Continuous Measurement of Transcutaneous CO2 for Evaluation of Alveolar Dead Space During Exercise

Brief description of study

The study aim is to monitor, during exercise tests carried out in various conditions, the alveolar dead space, by means of continuous transcutaneous measurement of Pt CO2, which would be used as a surrogate for arterial PaCO2. Validity of this measurement needs to be assessed against arterial sampling (either arterial, or arterialized capillary), especially with regards to the lag time required by the CO2 diffusion from the arterial compartment (PaCO2) to the cutaneous one (PtCO2), in particular when rapid changes of CO2 might be induced by exercise.

The evaluation will be done in 2 different settings:

intensive care patients, equipped, for their routine clinical care, with an arterial line; this allows for a precise timed comparison between PaCO2 and PtCO2 readouts;
routine exercise test, where blood gas evaluation is done essentially by means of arterialized earlobe capillary sampling.
Following assessment of validity of the measurement (and the lag time PaCO2-PtCO2 which might be necessary to introduce as a correction), evolution of dead space during excise test will be tested in different conditions: Healthy subjects, patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), chronic heart failure (CHF), hyperventilation, Pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH), or interstitial lung disease (ILD)

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