Venous return and mean systemic filling pressure: physiology and clinical applications
Romain Persichini,
Christopher Lai,
Jean-Louis Teboul,
Imane Adda,
Laurent Guérin,
Xavier Monnet
Affiliations
Romain Persichini
Service de Réanimation et Soins Continus, Centre Hospitalier de Saintonge
Christopher Lai
Université Paris-Saclay, AP-HP, Service de médecine intensive-réanimation, Hôpital Bicêtre, DMU CORREVE, Inserm UMR S_999, FHU SEPSIS, Groupe de Recherche Clinique CARMAS
Jean-Louis Teboul
Université Paris-Saclay, AP-HP, Service de médecine intensive-réanimation, Hôpital Bicêtre, DMU CORREVE, Inserm UMR S_999, FHU SEPSIS, Groupe de Recherche Clinique CARMAS
Imane Adda
Université Paris-Saclay, AP-HP, Service de médecine intensive-réanimation, Hôpital Bicêtre, DMU CORREVE, Inserm UMR S_999, FHU SEPSIS, Groupe de Recherche Clinique CARMAS
Laurent Guérin
Université Paris-Saclay, AP-HP, Service de médecine intensive-réanimation, Hôpital Bicêtre, DMU CORREVE, Inserm UMR S_999, FHU SEPSIS, Groupe de Recherche Clinique CARMAS
Xavier Monnet
Université Paris-Saclay, AP-HP, Service de médecine intensive-réanimation, Hôpital Bicêtre, DMU CORREVE, Inserm UMR S_999, FHU SEPSIS, Groupe de Recherche Clinique CARMAS
Abstract Venous return is the flow of blood from the systemic venous network towards the right heart. At steady state, venous return equals cardiac output, as the venous and arterial systems operate in series. However, unlike the arterial one, the venous network is a capacitive system with a high compliance. It includes a part of unstressed blood, which is a reservoir that can be recruited via sympathetic endogenous or exogenous stimulation. Guyton’s model describes the three determinants of venous return: the mean systemic filling pressure, the right atrial pressure and the resistance to venous return. Recently, new methods have been developed to explore such determinants at the bedside. In this narrative review, after a reminder about Guyton’s model and current methods used to investigate it, we emphasize how Guyton’s physiology helps understand the effects on cardiac output of common treatments used in critically ill patients.
