Right-to-left shunt with hypoxemia in pulmonary hypertension

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hypoxemia is common in pulmonary hypertension (PH) and may be partly related to ventilation/perfusion mismatch, low diffusion capacity, low cardiac output, and/or right-to-left (RL) shunting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To determine whether true RL shunting causing hypoxemia is caused by intracardiac shunting, as classically considered, a retrospective single center study was conducted in consecutive patients with precapillary PH, with hypoxemia at rest (PaO₂< 10 kPa), shunt fraction (Qs/Qt) greater than 5%, elevated alveolar-arterial difference of PO₂(AaPO₂), and with transthoracic contrast echocardiography performed within 3 months.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 263 patients with precapillary PH, 34 patients were included: pulmonary arterial hypertension, 21%; PH associated with lung disease, 47% (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 23%; interstitial lung disease, 9%; other, 15%); chronic thromboembolic PH, 26%; miscellaneous causes, 6%. Mean pulmonary artery pressure, cardiac index, and pulmonary vascular resistance were 45.8 ± 10.8 mmHg, 2.2 ± 0.6 L/min/m², and 469 ± 275 dyn.s.cm^-5, respectively. PaO₂in room air was 6.8 ± 1.3 kPa. Qs/Qt was 10.2 ± 4.2%. AaPO₂under 100% oxygen was 32.5 ± 12.4 kPa. Positive contrast was present at transthoracic contrast echocardiography in 6/34 (18%) of patients, including only 4/34 (12%) with intracardiac RL shunting. Qs/Qt did not correlate with hemodynamic parameters. Patients' characteristics did not differ according to the result of contrast echocardiography.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>When present in patients with precapillary PH, RL shunting is usually not related to reopening of patent <it>foramen ovale</it>, whatever the etiology of PH.</p

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase

Pulmonary hypertension in COPD and lung transplantation : timing and procedures

The prevalence of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in the general chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) population is undefined because stable COPD patients do not routinely undergo screening echocardiogram and right heart catheterization. Most studies published on this topic are focused on a highly selected group of patients with moderate to severe disease awaiting lung transplantation, since hemodynamic data from cardiac catheterization are part of the standard transplant evaluation. In a very recent article, Hurdman et al. studied the characteristics and outcomes, with a particular focus on mortality, of extensively phenotyped, consecutive patients with PH-COPD over a 9-year period. This article offers the opportunity to update the role of PH in COPD as a timer to propose lung transplantation, based on solid literature data on survival, and to select the best procedure (single or double lung transplant), since the outcome indexes based on the old GOLD classification according to FEV1 (1-4) and the new GOLD classification (A-D) have failed in purpose to define the correct timing, due to the lack of functional (6 minutes walking test) and nutritional (Body Mass Index) data. After a revision of available literature including the recent paper of Hurdman et al. we conclude that the timing for lung transplantation is easy to manage in case of severe PH-COPD. On the other hand mild and moderate PH-COPD are still object of debate for therapy, procedure timing and choice and rehabilitation. In other words, we have some confirms for a little percentage of patients, whilst many doubts still exist for the rest