Fluid challenge is a common practice in the ICU. It is one of the most important resuscitation manoeuvres of acute circulatory failure management in critically ill patients. Adequate fluid resuscitation is very important because both hypovolaemia and fluid overload can result in poor outcomes in the ICU. The criteria for fluid administration still remains controversial. A study was conducted to evaluate whether echocardiographic assessment of the response to fluid challenge at the end of the infusion or 20 minutes later could affect results.

The study included ICU patients in septic shock and who required a fluid challenge (FC) of 500 mL crystalloids over 10 minutes. Fluid responsiveness was defined as a > 15% increase in stroke volume (SV) assessed by velocity-time integral (VTI) measurements at baseline (T0), at the end of FC (T10), then 10 (T20) and 20 min (T30) after the end of FC.

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