Pediatric cardiology
-
Pediatric cardiology · May 1996
Noninvasive evaluation of systolic pressures of pulmonary artery and right ventricle using contrast-enhanced doppler echocardiography: comparative study using sonicated albumin or glucose solution.
Evaluation of pulmonary arterial pressure is essential for the diagnosis and management of patients with congenital heart disease; it is usually done by cardiac catheterization. An alternative, noninvasive method may be clinically more useful. The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of the noninvasive determination of systolic pressure of the pulmonary artery and right ventricle by contrast-enhanced Doppler echocardiography. ⋯ The transtricuspid pressure gradients obtained by continuous-wave Doppler during sonicated albumin enhancement corresponded closely to those measured by cardiac catheterization (r = 0.95). Pulmonary arterial and right ventricular systolic pressures measured by Doppler using sonicated albumin and those obtained by cardiac catheterization were highly correlated (right ventricle, r = 0.96; pulmonary artery, r = 0.95). In conclusion, this technique may be a valuable noninvasive method for determining accurate right ventricular and pulmonary arterial systolic pressures.