Prevention of Cerebral Embolization from Flushing Radial-Artery Cannulas

Abstract

USE of indwelling arterial cannulas has become standard practice for monitoring of systemic arterial pressure and sampling of arterial blood in critically ill patients.¹ A recent article implicates clots formed at the tip of a Scribner shunt as being responsible for cerebrovascular accidents when these clots were flushed retrograde into the central arterial circulation.² That study included a calculation of the theoretical volume of flush solution necessary to cause cerebral embolization, but had no confirmatory measurements. The occurrence of sudden unexplained neurologic deficits in patients with indwelling radial arterial cannulas prompted the present study. The purpose was to determine a . . .