Keywords:
Cardiac, MR, Comparative studies, Hypertension
Authors:
E. A. Mershina, E. Pershina, V. Sinitsyn, T. Martyniuk; Moscow/RU
Purpose
In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH),
cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has been proposed as a standard for the assessment of right ventricular function and characteristics of the pulmonary vascular bed [1,
2].
Accurate assessment of stroke volume (SV) by CMR is critical in this respect,
since earlier studies revealed that SV is closely related to prognosis and that a change in SV reflects treatment effects [3]. SV can be assessed by measuring flow in the main pulmonary artery (PA) using phase-contrast CMR (PC CMR) protocols [6] (Fig. 1).
Previous studies have shown that this method is accurate to assess SV measuring PA flow in healthy subjects [4].
PA velocity profile in PAH patients is non-laminar [5],
SV calculation may be not accurate abd needs to be tested. For this test of accuracy,
a clinical standard is required.
This standard is provided by the measurement of SV using the direct Fick procedure during right heart catheterisation (RHC).
Our aim was to assess the accuracy of SV assessment by measuring flow in the PA using PC CMR and using volumetric analysis of ventricles (cine CMR) in comparison with RHC in patients with PAH.