Accuracy and Diagnostic Performance of Doppler Echocardiography to
Estimate Mean Pulmonary Artery Pressure in Heart Failure
Abstract
BACKGROUND. Multiple Doppler Echocardiography (DE) algorithms have been
proposed to estimate mean pulmonary artery pressure
(PAPM) and assess pulmonary hypertension (PH)
likelihood. We assessed the accuracy of 4 different DE approaches to
estimate PAPM in patients with heart failure (HF)
undergoing near-simultaneous right heart catheterization (RHC), and
compared their diagnostic performance to identify PH with
recommendation-advised tricuspid regurgitation peak velocity
(TRVmax). METHODS. PAPM was
retrospectively assessed in 112 HF patients employing 4 previously
validated DE algorithms. Association and agreement with invasive
PAPM were assessed. Diagnostic performance of DE methods
vs. TRVmax=2.8m/sec to identify invasive
PAPM ≥ 25mmHg were compared. RESULTS. All DE algorithms
demonstrated reasonable association (r = 0.41 to 0.65;
p<0.001) and good agreement with invasive
PAPM, with relatively lower mean bias and higher
precision observed in algorithms that included TRVmax or
velocity time integral. All methods demonstrated strong ability
(AUC=0.70-0.80; p<0.001) to identify PH but did not outperform
TRVmax (AUC=0.84; p<0.001). Echocardiographic
estimates of right atrial pressure were considered in 3 of 4 DE
algorithms and falsely elevated in as many as 30% of patients.
CONCLUSIONS. Echocardiographic estimates of PAPM
demonstrate reasonable accuracy to represent invasive
PAPM and strong ability to identify PH in HF. However,
even the best performing algorithm did not outperform
recommendation-advised TRVmax. The additional value of
echocardiographic estimates of right atrial pressure may need to be
re-evaluated.