Pressure of Blood in the Right Auricle, in Animals and in Man: Under Normal Conditions and in Right Heart Failure

Central Venous Pressure in Relation to Cardiac “Competence,” Blood Volume and Exercise

“…A quantitatively similar gradient between peripheral and auricular venous pressures was found (5) in auricular catheterizations of normal human beings. In some patients with cardiac damage normal peripheral venous pressures at rest were associated with auricular pressures which were considerably higher than normal.…”

“…The division between "backward failure" and "forward failure" (34) becomes somewhat less rigid because the former may, through changes in effective blood volume, lead during activity to the latter. 5. Secondary plethora or hypervolemia.…”

The Effects of the Cardiac Glycosides Upon the Dynamics of the Circulation in Congestive Heart Failure. I. Ouabain 12

“…The patient was of particular interest for his unchanging ventricular rate of 133, in the presence of auricular fibrillation. While his initial right ventricular systolic pressure was normal, the peripheral venous pressure -was in the upper normal range, and the normal gradient between the venous and ventricular diastolic pressures did not exista finding which, as Richards et al (16,17) have pointed out, may have the same significance in early right heart failure as a heightened venous pressure. In view, then, of his unaltered ventricular rate, and unaltered venous pressure, it is reasonable to suppose that the decline in ventricular pressures, chiefly systolic, resulted from the transfer of blood from the pulmonary field to the systemic side; and that there was prompt adjustment to this increased systemic arterial input by a lowering of the peripheral resistance.…”

Recording of Right Heart Pressures in Normal Subjects and in Patients With Chronic Pulmonary Disease and Various Types of Cardio-Circulatory Disease 1

“…The correspondence between the auricular and the ventricular diastolic pressures is also apparent. As has been pointed out, the diminution in gradient from peripheral vein to auricle has been a feature of right heart failure, even in the absence of a markedly elevated peripheral venous pressure (13,14). Forward flow in the vein under consideration may still be accomplished, in spite of no mean venous-auricular gradient, as long as the auricular pressure at some time in the cardiac cycle is below that in the vein, as is especially true early in ventricular diastole.…”