Fig. 3
From: Pathophysiology and clinical implications of the veno-arterial PCO2 gap
The inverse relationship between cardiac output and the Pva-CO2 gap. A reduction in cardiac output is associated with a progressive increase in the Pva-CO2 gap, which becomes exponential at very low cardiac output values, because of the flat slope of the CO2 dissociation curve in conditions of tissue hypercarbia. The relationship is displaced to the right at higher CO2 production (VCO2)