Pulmonary artery wedge pressure and left ventricular end-diastolic pressure during exercise in patients with dyspnoea

What is it about?

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is characterized by a stiff left ventricle conditioning high filling pressure, at rest in the overt form of disease, or only during exercise in case of an early phase of disease. High filling pressure in the left side of the heart backward transmit to the pulmonary circulation, leading to exertional breathlessness. However, left heart catheterization is a quite risky procedure. Thus, right cardiac catheterization, a less invasive procedure, is generally used to measure the pulmonary artery wedge pressure. This latter was previously demonstrated as a good surrogate of the pressure in the left heart, but only in resting conditions. With our study, for the first time, we have shown that the pulmonary artery wedge pressure is a good surrogate of the pressure in the left heart also during exercise, allowing the correct identification of disease in the great majority of cases.

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