F luid overload and the removal of intravascular volume are a common challenge following cardiac surgery. This is of particular importance because fluid overload has been demonstrated to increase morbidity and mortality following pediatric cardiac surgery (1, 2). However, fluid removal in preload-dependent patients decreases stroke volume (SV), and cardiac output may contribute to organ injury and dysfunction (3).In this issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Jacquet-Lagrèze et al (4) conducted a prospective observational study to assess the ability to predict hemodynamic instability with active fluid removal following pediatric cardiac surgery. The study included children 8 years old or younger (n = 58) who were deemed to be fluid overloaded based on the presence of peripheral edema or a greater than 10% increase in body weight following surgery. The primary aim of the study was to determine if preload dependence predicted hemodynamic instability (decrease in blood pressure [BP] of 10% or greater) following the active removal (diuretics) of 10 cc/kg of fluid over 2 hours. Preload dependence was determined by a 10% or greater calibrated abdominal compression (CAC)induced increase in SV index (SVi).The study concluded that changes in SVi with CAC were not predictive of hemodynamic instability following fluid removal (area under the curve of 0.55). The study also found that other markers used to assess preload such as inferior cava vein collapsibility and central venous pressure (CVP) also failed to predict hemodynamic stability after fluid removal.No single marker had good positive predictive and negative predictive values. They found that preload dependence was most accurately predicted by inferior cava vein diameter (area under the curve of 0.72). This represents good accuracy to predict hemodynamic stability and provided a positive predictive value of 1 but a negative predictive value of 0.3. In the clinical setting, this would mean that inferior cava vein diameter of less than 0.72 cm/m 2 would predict a decrease in mean BP 100% of the time after fluid removal, whereas a diameter of greater than 0.72 cm/m 2 would predict the absence of a decrease in mean BP only 30% of the time. Thus, if this metric is used, it is still very possible that there may be a decrease in BP even if the inferior cava vein diameter is greater than the provided cutoff.We applaud the authors for exploring the hemodynamic effects of active fluid removal and attempting to identify "hemodynamic" parameters that may be useful in predicting who will not tolerate such a strategy. It is difficult to objectively determine what constitutes fluid overload and similarly what constitutes adequate intravascular volume. The use of a CVP to guide fluid management may be useful. However, this parameter has significant limitations for guiding such strategies (5). The indicator of ventricular