Introduction
Early goal-directed therapy has been used for severe sepsis and septic shock in the ICU to achieve a balance between systemic oxygen delivery and oxygen demand before global tissue hypoxia develops and proceeds to multiorgan failure. One of the resuscitation end points includes normalized values for central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2) that needs insertion of a central venous catheterization, which is still impractical in small-to-medium-sized hospitals in Thailand. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the venous oxygen saturation from the antecubital vein has correlation with the central venous oxygen saturation or can be applied instead of the central venous oxygen saturation.