Abstract
Aims
One of the most challenging differential diagnoses in pulmonary hypertension clinical practice, is the discrimination between idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) and pulmonary hypertension due to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (PH-HFpEF).
We elaborate a score (considering patient clinical history, demographics, and echocardiographic characteristics) that can predict, noninvasively, PH-HFpEF vs. IPAH diagnosis.
Methods and results
Data were prospectively collected on 466 consecutive patients with a final diagnosis of IPAH or PH-HFpEF referred to a single tertiary pulmonary vascular disease centre. Data included clinical history, demographics, and parameters of an electrocardiogram and a transthoracic echocardiogram. A multivariate regression model was developed to predict a PH-HFpEF diagnosis, and an integer risk score was generated using adjusted regression coefficients of the multivariate logistic regression analysis. At the multivariate logistic regression a high ratio between left and right ventricular dimensions, a history of atrial fibrillation (AF), a high body mass index (BMI), a reduced mitral deceleration time and a high E-wave at trans-mitral Doppler, an advanced age and a high right ventricular fractional area change (FAC) were predictors of PH-HFpEF. The derived PH-HFPEF score (Figure), with a cut-point ≥11, yielded a specificity/sensitivity, respectively, for the diagnosis of PH-HFpEF, of 100%/49% with an AUC of 0.987.
ED, end-diastolic; LV, left ventricle; RV, right ventricle.
Conclusions
The PH-HFPEF score can predict PH-HFpEF vs. IPAH. The PH-HFPEF score may be used to potentially avoid an invasive diagnostic testing in almost half of PH-HFpEF patients.
Right ventricular-vascular coupling in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and pre- vs. post-capillary pulmonary hypertension
