• Andrei Seferian, Badia Helal, Xavier Jaïs, Barbara Girerd, Laura C Price, Sven Günther, Laurent Savale, Peter Dorfmüller, Florence Parent, Olivier Sitbon, Marc Humbert, Gérald Simonneau, and David Montani.
• Université Paris-Sud, Faculté de Médecine, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France.
• Eur. Respir. J. 2012 Jul 1; 40 (1): 75-83.

AbstractPulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD), a rare form of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), requires histological proof for definitive diagnosis; however, lung biopsy is not recommended in PAH. Recent conjoint European Respiratory Society/European Society of Cardiology guidelines suggest that nonmatched perfusion defects on ventilation/perfusion (V'/Q') lung scanning in PAH patients may suggest PVOD. The aim of our study was to evaluate V'/Q' lung scans in a large cohort of PVOD and idiopathic or heritable PAH patients. V'/Q' lung scans from 70 patients with idiopathic or heritable PAH and 56 patients with confirmed or highly probable PVOD were reviewed in a double-blind manner. The vast majority of V'/Q' lung scans were normal or without significant abnormalities in both groups. No differences in ventilation or perfusion lung scans were observed between PAH and PVOD patients (all p>0.05). Furthermore, no differences were observed between confirmed (n=31) or highly probable PVOD (n=25). Nonmatched perfusion defects were found in seven (10%) idiopathic PAH patients and four (7.1%) PVOD patients (p>0.05). Nonmatched perfusion defects were rarely seen in a large cohort of idiopathic or heritable PAH and PVOD patients. Future recommendations should be amended according to these results suggesting that V'/Q' lung scanning is not useful in discriminating PVOD from idiopathic PAH.

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