1 Primary Children's Hospital and Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
An automated system for on line, real time computerized determination of arterial blood pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and pH has been developed at the Primary Children's Hospital. The determinations are made from a 0.3 ml sample of blood withdrawn automatically under computer control from an indwelling arterial catheter. The results are displayed nearly immediately in alpha-numeric terms on a memory scope at the cribside.
Laboratory evaluation and a limited clinical experience with six patients indicate the system to be a safe method for accurate and close monitoring of critically ill infants and is particularly applicable to use in the respiratory distress syndrome. The system is known as CABAS, a term coined from Computerized Automated Blood Analysis System.