Diagnostics in Pulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension is a serious disease with a poor prognosis. Pulmonary hypertension is defined by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure over 25 mm Hg at rest or over 30 mm Hg during activity. According to the recent WHO classification from 2003 pulmonary hypertension can be categorized as pulmonary arterial hypertension, pulmonary venous hypertension, hypoxic pulmonary hypertension, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary hypertension from other causes. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is characterized histopathologically by vasoconstriction, vascular proliferation, in situ thrombosis, and remodeling of all 3 levels of the vascular walls. These pathologic changes result in progressive increases in the mean pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance, which, if untreated leads to right-ventricular failure and death. Early in the disease process, the signs and symptoms of PAH are often nonspecific, making diagnosis challenging. Patients often present with progressively worsening dyspnea and fatigue. Patients with severe pulmonary arterial hypertension die of right heart failure. The diagnostic procedures include clinical history and physical examination, a standard chest radiography, electrocardiography, transthoracic Doppler echocardiography, pulmonary function tests, arterial blood gas analysis, ventilation and perfusion lung scan, high-resolution computed tomography of the lungs, contrast-enhanced spiral computed tomography of the lungs and pulmonary angiography, blood tests and immunology, abdominal ultrasound scan, exercise capacity assessment, and hemodynamic evaluation. Invasive and non-invasive markers of disease severity, either biomarkers or physiological parameter and tests that can be widely applied, have been proposed to reliably monitor the clinical course. Pulmonary biopsy is rarely indicated. Transthoracic echocardiography is a key screening tool in the diagnostic algorithm. Because transthoracic echocardiography is an inexpensive, easy, and reproducible method, it is the most commonly used noninvasive diagnostic tool to determine pulmonary arterial pressure. But it not only provides an estimate of pulmonary pressure at rest and during exercise, but it may also help to exclude any secondary causes of pulmonary hypertension, predict the prognosis, monitor the efficacy of specific therapeutic interventions, and detect the preclinical stage of the disease. In addition, the measurement of serum markers, such as brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), are diagnostically useful and of prognostic significance. Once the diagnosis and etiology of pulmonary hypertension have been established, several parameters can predict outcome in these patients: functional class, right ventricular function, pulmonary hemodynamics, and certain laboratory parameters. Also, exercise parameters such as walking distance, peak oxygen uptake or peak systolic blood pressure can reliable predict prognosis in these patients.