Cyclic haemodynamic and arterial blood gas changes during Cheyne-Stokes breathing.

A 74-year-old patient presented with congestive heart failure and continuous periodic breathing. Left ventricular ejection fraction was 20% and the lung-to-brain circulation time was prolonged to 35 s. We report on the phasic changes of the patient's arterial blood gas tensions and on the periodic fluctuations of pulmonary artery pressures and cardiac output that we observed during Swan-Ganz catheterisation.