• Amit Chopra, Kristin B Highland, Eddie Kilb, and John T Huggins.
• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY, USA. Electronic address: chopraa1@mail.amc.edu.
• Am. J. Med. Sci. 2021 Jun 1; 361 (6): 731-735.

BackgroundThe relationship between the presence of pleural and pericardial effusion in reference to hemodynamic parameters remains unclear in ambulatory patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH).MethodsConsecutive patients who underwent right catheterization (RHC) for the evaluation of pulmonary hypertension were enrolled. Point-of- care ultrasound was performed prior to the RHC to determine the presence of pleural effusion and pericardial effusion. We conducted a cross-sectional study to determine the association between presence of pericardial and pleural effusion with pulmonary hemodynamic variables.ResultsTwenty-five (78.1%) of 32 patients had evidence of PH by RHC. Mean pulmonary artery pressure of the population was 40.6 mmHg, and 68% (17/25) had WHO group I PH. Six (24.0%) of 25 PH patients had pleural effusions identified, of which 4 out of 6 (66.7%) had a pulmonary artery wedge pressure >15 mmHg. Eleven (44.0%) of the 25 PH patients were also found to have pericardial effusions, and most of those patients 10/11(90.9%) had an elevated right atrial pressure >10 mmHg. The presence of a pleural effusion was associated with a pulmonary artery wedge pressure >15 mmHg (p = 0.032) and the presence of a pericardial effusion was associated with a right atrial pressure >10 mmHg (p = 0.004). Detection of pleural effusion had a poor positive predictive value (67%) for the presence of pulmonary venous hypertension, whereas presence of a pericardial effusion was highly predictive (89%) of the presence of systemic venous hypertension.ConclusionsSystemic venous hypertension was associated with the presence of pericardial effusions, while pulmonary venous hypertension is associated with pleural effusion development in ambulatory patients with pulmonary hypertension.Copyright © 2021 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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