Cardiovascular disease is the primary cause of death worldwide. The cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory systems operate in continuous dynamic interplay, under the influence of numerous neurally and mechanically-mediated regulatory mechanisms.
To date, a major shortcoming lies in the nonaccessibility of the “true” system variables, such as ventricular and intrathoracic pressures, to name but a few. Quantitative analyses usually operate on an under-determined system, which is represented by surrogate variables.
This project removes this limitation by combining state-of the art linear and nonlinear signal processing techniques with cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory data collected from patients undergoing major surgery, which requires extensive invasive cardiovascular monitoring. The general objectives are the extraction of indexes of diagnostic/prognostic values, the validation of non-invasive indexes through the construction of invasive gold standards, and the study and development of reliable tools to identify the preoperative cardiovascular and emodynamic risk of patients.