Cor Vasa 2023, 65(4):617-623 | DOI: 10.33678/cor.2023.020

Can systolic pulmonary artery pressure be used as one of the criteria of risk stratification in acute pulmonary embolism?

Habibe Hezera, Ayse Sule Atesb, Idris Yakutc, Hatice Kilicd, H. Canan Hasanoglud
a Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Ankara City Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
b Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Sakarya Training and Research Hospital, Sakarya, Turkey
c Department of Cardiology, Ankara City Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
d Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey

Background: In acute pulmonary embolism (PE), rapid diagnosis and treatment planning according to mortality risk classification are important.

Objectives: To explore the effectiveness of systolic pulmonary artery pressure (sPAP) values in the risk stratification of the patients with acute PE.

Methods: This study is a retrospective, cross-sectional clinical trial design. A total of 221 patients who were admitted to our hospital and diagnosed as acute PE by thorax computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) was included in the study. All patients were evaluated by echocardiography (ECHO) and sPAP was calculated by Bernoulli equation. The relationships between variables such as the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) risk stratification, right ventricular dysfunction (RVD), troponin T, and sPAP levels were examined with Spearman's correlation coefficients.

Results: A strong positive linear correlation was found between sPAP, and troponin T, RVD, ESC high-risk, intermediate-high risk groups (Spearman's r = 0.615, 0.798, 0.411, 0.408, p <0.001, respectively). The optimal cut-off value for sPAP was found as 41.5 mmHg with an overall accuracy of 0.961 (95% CI: 0.937-0.984). Besides, at the cut-off value of 41.5 mmHg, sPAP was found effective in determining RVD and ESC risk groups (p <0.0001). Sensitivity and specificity of sPAP was found as 85%, 92%, respectively in detecting RVD above 41.5 mmHg cut-off value.

Conclusions: Although sPAP is not considered as a reliable finding of ECHO in the patients with acute PE, our study results confirmed that it can be valuable in the risk stratification of acute PE. It would be useful to include sPAP to RVD criteria for acute PE risk stratification.

Keywords: Echocardiography, Pulmonary embolism, Right ventricular dysfunction, Risk stratification, Systolic pulmonary artery pressure

Received: October 2, 2022; Revised: January 30, 2023; Accepted: March 8, 2023; Published: September 1, 2023  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Hezer H, Sule Ates A, Yakut I, Kilic H, Canan Hasanoglu H. Can systolic pulmonary artery pressure be used as one of the criteria of risk stratification in acute pulmonary embolism? Cor Vasa. 2023;65(4):617-623. doi: 10.33678/cor.2023.020.
Download citation

References

  1. Konstantinides SV, Torbicki A, Agnelli G, et al. 2014 ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism. Eur Heart J 2014;35:3033-3069. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  2. Konstantinides SV, Meyer G, Becattini C, et al. 2019 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism developed in collaboration with the European Respiratory Society (ERS). Eur Heart J 2020;41:543-603. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  3. Hasanoğlu HC, Hezer H, Karalezli A, et al. Half-dose recombinant tissue plasminogen activator treatment in venous thromboembolism. J Investig Med 2014;62:71-77.
  4. Hezer H, Kilic H, Abuzaina O, et al. Long-term results of low-dose tissue plasminogen activator therapy in acute pulmonary embolism. J Investig Med 2019;67:1142-1147. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  5. Cohen AT, Agnelli G, Anderson FA, et al. Venous thromboembolism (VTE) in Europe. The number of VTE events and associated morbidity and mortality. Thromb Haemost 2007;98:756-764. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  6. Jimenez D, de Miguel-Diez J, Guijarro R, et al. Trends in the management and outcomes of acute pulmonary embolism: analysis from the RIETE registry. J Am Coll Cardiol 2016;67:162-170. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  7. Agarwal S, Clark D 3rd, Sud K, et al. Gender disparities in outcomes and resource utilization for acute pulmonary embolism hospitalizations in the United States. Am J Cardiol 2015;116:1270-1276. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  8. Lafitte S, Pillois X, Reant P, et al. Estimation of pulmonary pressures and diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension by Doppler echocardiography: a retrospective comparison of routine echocardiography and invasive hemodynamics. J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2013;26:457-463. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  9. Fisher MR, Forfia PR, Chamera E, et al. Accuracy of Doppler echocardiography in the hemodynamic assessment of pulmonary hypertension. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2009;179:615-621. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  10. Bossone E, D'Andrea A, D'Alto M, et al. Echocardiography in pulmonary arterial hypertension: from diagnosis to prognosis. J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2013;26:1-14. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  11. Chemla D, Humbert M, Sitbon O, et al. Systolic and mean pulmonary artery pressures: are they interchangeable in patients with pulmonary hypertension? Chest 2015;147:943-950. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  12. Bryce YC, Perez-Johnston R, Bryce EB, et al. Pathophysiology of right ventricular failure in acute pulmonary embolism and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: a pictorial essay for the interventional radiologist. Insights Imaging 2019;10:18. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  13. Smulders YV. Pathophysiology and treatment of haemodynamic instability in acute pulmonary embolism: the pivotal role of pulmonary vasoconstriction. Cardiovasc Res 2000;48:23-33. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  14. Meyer T, Binder L, Hruska N, et al. Cardiac Troponin I Elevation in Acute Pulmonary Embolism Is Associated With Right Ventricular Dysfunction. J Am Coll Cardiol 2000;36:1632-1636. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  15. Liu YY, Li XC, Duan Z, et al. Correlation between the embolism area and pulmonary arterial systolic pressure as an indicator of pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with acute pulmonary thromboembolism. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2014;18:2551-2555.
  16. Torbicki A, Galié N, Covezzoli A, et al. Right heart thrombi in pulmonary embolism: results from the InternationalCooperative Pulmonary Embolism Registry. J Am Coll Cardiol 2003;41:2245-2251. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  17. Casazza F, Bongarzoni A, Centonze F, et al. Prevalence and prognostic significance of right-sided cardiac mobile thrombi in acute massive pulmonary embolism. Am J Cardiol 1997;79:1433-1435. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  18. Adams JE, Bodor GS, Dávila-Román VG, et al. Cardiac troponin I. A marker with high specificity for cardiac injury. Circulation 1993;88:101-106. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  19. Meyer T, Binder L, Graeber T, et al. Superiority of combined CK-MB and troponin I measurements for the early risk stratification of unselected patients presenting with acute chest pain. Cardiology 1998;90:286-294. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  20. Polanczyk CA, Lee TH, Cook EF, et al. Cardiac troponin I as a predictor of major cardiac events in emergency department patients with acute chest pain. J Am Coll Cardiol 1998;32:8-14. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  21. Becattini, C, Vedovati MC, Agnelli G. Prognostic value of troponins in acute pulmonary embolism: a meta-analysis. Circulation 2007;116:427-433. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
  22. Mishra AK, Lal A, Sahu KK, et al. An Update on Pulmonary Hypertension in Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19). Acta Biomed 2020;91:e2020155.
  23. Keller K, Geyer M, Coldewey M, et al. Elevated systolic pulmonary artery pressure for prediction of myocardial necrosis and right ventricular dysfunction in acute pulmonary embolism. Cor Vasa 2016;58:e403-e410. Go to original source...
  24. Zhu L, Yang Y, Wu Y, et al. Value of right ventricular dysfunction for prognosis in pulmonary embolism. Int J Cardiol 2008;127:40-45. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.





Cor et Vasa

You are accessing a site intended for medical professionals, not the lay public. The site may also contain information that is intended only for persons authorized to prescribe and dispense medicinal products for human use.

I therefore confirm that I am a healthcare professional under Act 40/1995 Coll. as amended by later regulations and that I have read the definition of a healthcare professional.