Pulmonary artery pressure assessed by catheterization and its concordance with transthoracic echocardiographic estimates in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension: experience of the Colombian Pulmonary Hypertension Network in a real-life study

Objective  To evaluate the correlation and concordance of pulmonary artery systolic pressure values measured via right heart catheterization and estimated via transthoracic echocardiography based on data from a multicenter cohort of patients with pulmonary hypertension in Colombia.

Methods  A retrospective study was conducted of patients with pulmonary hypertension classified into Groups 1 or 4 according to the definitions of the ESC/ERS-PH-2022 guidelines. Patients were obtained from the Colombian Pulmonary Hypertension Network (HAPredco) database.

Results  A total of 633 patients were identified and included in this study. Among these patients, 77.7% (n = 492) had complete data from transthoracic echocardiography at diagnosis, 58,3% (n = 369) had complete data from right heart catheterization at the time of diagnosis, and 264 (41.7%) had complete data from both tests at diagnosis, with a difference in days between them of 1 (84). The values of pulmonary artery systolic pressure estimated by transthoracic echocardiography and those obtained by right heart catheterization were significantly correlated (p < 0.001) in the entire population evaluated, as was the correlation assessed for those patients with a gap of ≤ 7 days (p = 0.0001) or ≤ 48 hours (p = 0.041) between the two examinations; however, these findings presented a low Spearman (0.32 for ≤ 7 days and 0.264 for ≤ 48 hours) and Lin´s correlation coefficient (0.32 for ≤ 7 days and 0.21 for ≤ 48 hours).

Conclusion  The pulmonary artery systolic pressure values estimated via transthoracic echocardiography and measured via right heart catheterization were significantly but weakly linearly correlated, with low concordance. These findings suggest interindividual variability between the pulmonary artery systolic pressure values obtained by the two methods, which may have clinical significance in follow-up and decision-making.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension; Pulmonary artery; Blood pressure; Cardiac catheterization; Echocardiography