Accuracy of Noninvasively Determined Pulmonary Artery Systolic Pressure

• Published in: The American journal of cardiology 2010-04, Vol.105 (8), p.1192-1197
• Main Authors: Testani, Jeffrey M., MD, St. John Sutton, Martin G., MBBS, Wiegers, Susan E., MD, Khera, Amit V., BS, Shannon, Richard P., MD, Kirkpatrick, James N., MD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Biological and medical sciences; Blood Pressure Determination - methods; Blood Pressure Determination - standards; Cardiac Catheterization; Cardiology; Cardiology. Vascular system; Cardiovascular; Cardiovascular disease; Clinical medicine; Data Interpretation, Statistical; Echocardiography - methods; Humans; Medical sciences; Multivariate analysis; Prospective Studies; Pulmonary Wedge Pressure - physiology; Reproducibility of Results; ROC Curve; Systole; Ultrasonic imaging
• ISSN: 0002-9149; 1879-1913
• DOI: 10.1016/j.amjcard.2009.11.048

The noninvasive estimation of pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) has become a standard component of the echocardiographic examination. Our aim was to evaluate the accuracy of this modality in a large series of unselected studies obtained in clinical practice. All right heart catheterizations during a 4-year period were reviewed. Studies with echocardiographic findings available within 48 hours were evaluated for PASP agreement. In an effort to mirror clinical practice, the right heart catheterization findings were used as the reference standard and the PASP values were taken directly from the respective clinical reports. Overall, 792 right heart catheterization–echocardiogram pairs were identified. Echocardiographic PASP could not be estimated in 174 of these studies (22.0%). The correlation between modalities was moderate, but agreement was poor (bias 9.0%, 95% limits of agreement −53.2% to 71.2%, r = 0.52, p