8/5/05
This was a kind of interesting study involving a huge number of patients in the U.K., over 1000 in fact. The study involved pulmonary artery catheters which are commonly used for monitoring patients in the ICU.
It showed that there were no significant differences as far as mortality rates went in patients that had the catheters inserted and those that did not have them. These devices were first introduced in the 40s and have been used in a large number of patients in the ICU since then. But there was a lot of controversy as to their actual clinical effectiveness.
Source: Medpage Today
