Prediction of pulmonary arterial pressure in adults by pulsed doppler echocardiography

Doppler echocardlography was used to estimate pulmonary artery (PA) pressure in 45 AN patients with various kinds of heart disease and the patterns were compared with those of 32 normal control subjects. Doppler signals obtained in the right ventricular (RV) outflow tract just proximal to the pulmonary valve and electrocardiogram were recorded simultaneously. Doppler velocity time Intervals were measured as follows: RV preejection period, acceleration time from the onset of the RV ejection flow velocity to the peak, and RV ejection time. Thirty patients had PA hypertension and 16 patients had a low cardiac index. The best correlation with PA pressure was achieved by the RV preejection perlod/acceleration time index (r = 0.89 vs mean PA hypertension were 93 %p and 97 %r respectively. Acceleration time correlated best with the logarithm of PA mean pressure (r = −0.88). Patients were separated into 2 groups according to cardiac index. In those patterns with a cardiac index of