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Abstract

Objective: To assess the severity of a right heart overload due to pulmonary hypertension (PH), the estimated right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) determined by echocardiography has generally been measured. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the correlation between the right to left ventricular diameter (RV/LV) ratio determined with contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CE-CT) and the RVSP by echocardiography. Methods and Materials: 63 patients were enrolled and placed in two groups consisting of those with or without a right heart overload that was defined as an RV pressure of more than 40 mmHg on echocardiography. PH was observed in 31 patients (PH group) and the remaining 32 patients exhibited no PH (control group). In both groups, the RV and LV diameters were measured as the maximum inner diameter of each heart chamber in the axial image obtained from the CE-CT. Results: The RVSP of the PH and control groups was 58.5±20.7 mmHg and 26.1±0.4 mmHg, respectively. The RV/LV ratio for the PH group was significantly greater than that of the control group (1.1±0.4 and 0.8±0.1, p < 0.05). In both groups, the RV/LV ratio was correlated (r2=0.21, p < 0.05) with the RVSP. An optimal cut off value of the diagnostic value of the RV/LV ratio of above 1.0 in the PH group had a sensitivity of 64.5%, specificity of 100%, positive predictive value of 100% and negative predictive value of 74.4%. Conclusion: The RV/LV ratio significantly correlated with the RVSP and that ratio was a useful parameter for diagnosing a right heart overload.

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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