Non-invasive estimation of pulmonary vascular resistance in patients of pulmonary hypertension in congenital heart disease with unobstructed pulmonary flow

CONTEXT: Pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) is a critical and essential parameter during the assessment and selection of modality of treatment in patients with congenital heart disease accompanied by pulmonary arterial hypertension. AIM: The present study was planned to evaluate non-invasive echocardiographic parameters to assess pulmonary vascular resistance. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This prospective observational study included 44 patients admitted in the cardiology and pediatric cardiology ward of our institution for diagnostic or pre-operative catheter based evaluation of pulmonary arterial pressure and PVR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Detailed echocardiographic evaluation was carried out including tricuspid regurgitation velocity (TRV) and velocity time integral of the right-ventricular outflow tract (VTI(RVOT)). These parameters were correlated with catheter-based measurements of PVR. RESULTS: The TRV/VTI(RVOT) ratio correlated well with PVR measured at catheterization (PVRcath) (r = 0.896, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.816 to 0.9423, P < 0.001). Using the Bland-Altman analysis, PVR measurements derived from Doppler data showed satisfactory limits of agreement with catheterization estimated PVR. For a PVR of 6 Wood units (WU), a TRV/VTI(RVOT) value of 0.14 provided a sensitivity of 96.67% and a specificity of 92.86% (area under the curve 0.963, 95% confidence interval 0.858 to 0.997) and for PVR of 8 WU a TRV/VTI(RVOT) value of 0.17 provided a sensitivity of 79.17% and a specificity of 95% (area under the curve 0. 0.923, 95% confidence interval 0.801 to 0.982). CONCLUSIONS: Doppler-derived ratio of TRV/VTI(RVOT) is a simple, non-invasive index, which can be used to estimate PVR.