Arterial BP from a Central line

[BandaidBunny]

Why is it that arterial lines can be ran from a femoral central line?

Isnt the femoral line venous blood and a different pressure?

Also, can a CVP be running off a femoral central line??

(as you can tell im not an ICU nurse)

My memory of this is seeing arterial lines in the radial artery, and CVP from a Swan.

A relatively length google serach did not answer my questions, so any help is appreciated.

Thanks all.

[ukstudent]

The femoral area has both an artery and a central vein. A practioner can place either a femoral central line (going into the vein) or femoral arterial line (going into the artery). Sometime both are placed next to each other.

CVP's can be obtained from central lines placed in the internal jugular or subclavian vein.

[Biffbradford]

Yup, as stated above, sometimes the patient comes from the cath lab with venous and arterial sheaths right next to each other. Art lines go in the radial artery. No, you can't do a CVP from the groin ... it's too far from the right atrium of the heart. If you Google some more, there are some posts here on AN about getting a CVP off a groin line, but they are looking at trends in the reading, rather than a true central venous pressure. I did a CVP off a PICC line last night. Not sure how accurate it was, but again, we were looking at trends. :)

[BelgianRN]

PICC line CVP should be relatively accurate since their tip is close to the right atrium only the length of the catheter is a bit longer.

I've attended a lecture on measuring the vena cava inferior pressure via a central femoral line as an alternative for and equivalent to intra abdominal pressure. We have yet to utilize it in practice though. And I think it's much more invasive and cumbersome as is measuring via the foley. Mostly because we have really nifty attachment tubing for our foleys so they can measure IAP.