An Alternative Method for Perioperative Estimation of Pulmonary Artery Systolic Pressure by Echocardiography.

Abstract

Background: In the perioperative setting, pulmonary hypertension is due to ischemia, left-sided valvular regurgitation and stenosis, residual shunt, pulmonary emboli, pericardial effusion etc. The pulmonary artery (PA) pressure can be assessed by different methods, including invasive pulmonary catheters and pulsed Doppler echocardiography. Because of limitations of Doppler echocardiography (conventional method) for evaluation of PA pressure, we purposed this study to determine whether tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) and S-wave velocity obtained by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) can be used as indices of systolic pulmonary artery pressure in perioperative setting.