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Cardiac catheters designed to rapidly inject a bolus of dye (usually indocyanine green) into the venous circulation near the right atrium. These catheters typically consist of a large-bore, flexible tube with end and side holes at its distal tip for high-flow injection; they are usually inserted peripherally. A sample of the blood is usually withdrawn continuously from a peripheral artery and passed through a densitometer, which determines the dye concentration. These catheters are used to determine the cardiac output during catheterization procedures, mostly when thermodilution methods are not appropriate or possible (e.g., quantification of left-to-right shunts in the heart).
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