%0 Journal Article
%T Novel computed tomographic chest metrics to detect pulmonary hypertension
%A Andrew L Chan
%A Maya M Juarez
%A David K Shelton
%A Taylor MacDonald
%A Chin-Shang Li
%A Tzu-Chun Lin
%A Timothy E Albertson
%J BMC Medical Imaging
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2342-11-7
%X This study retrospectively reviewed 101 acutely hospitalized inpatients with heterogeneous diagnoses, who consecutively underwent CT chest and RHC during the same admission. Two separate teams, each consisting of a radiologist and pulmonologist, blinded to clinical and RHC data, individually reviewed the chest CT's.Multiple regression analyses controlling for age, sex, ascending aortic diameter, body surface area, thoracic diameter and pulmonary wedge pressure showed that a main pulmonary artery (PA) diameter ¡Ý29 mm (odds ratio (OR) = 4.8), right descending PA diameter ¡Ý19 mm (OR = 7.0), true right descending PA diameter ¡Ý 16 mm (OR = 4.1), true left descending PA diameter ¡Ý 21 mm (OR = 15.5), right ventricular (RV) free wall ¡Ý 6 mm (OR = 30.5), RV wall/left ventricular (LV) wall ratio ¡Ý0.32 (OR = 8.8), RV/LV lumen ratio ¡Ý1.28 (OR = 28.8), main PA/ascending aorta ratio ¡Ý0.84 (OR = 6.0) and main PA/descending aorta ratio ¡Ý 1.29 (OR = 5.7) were significant predictors of PH in this population of hospitalized patients.This combination of easily measured CT-based metrics may, upon confirmatory studies, aid in the non-invasive detection of PH and hence in the determination of RHC candidacy in acutely hospitalized patients.Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is characterized by the presence of increased pulmonary vascular resistance caused by a combination of vasoconstriction, vascular remodeling, and thrombosis. Unfortunately, it can be potentially life-threatening as progressive right ventricular dilatation and hypertrophy may lead to heart failure within a few years [1,2]. As the treatment of PH has advanced dramatically over the past decade[3], early diagnosis may be key to its optimal treatment. While right heart catheterization (RHC) remains the "gold standard" for the measurement of pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP)[4], its invasive nature confers both risk and expense, and hence can delay diagnosis. Echocardiography as a noninvasive means of estimating PAP is limited in pa
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2342/11/7