Alteration of Right Ventricular to Pulmonary Artery Coupling in Systemic Sclerosis

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc) has a worse prognosis than idiopathic PAH. This may be explained, at least in part, by an uncoupling of the right ventricle (RV) to the pulmonary artery (PA). It has been shown by Guazzi that the RV/PA coupling may be assessed non-invasively by echocardiograpy, using the TAPSE/PAPs ratio ². We therefore sought to determine whether this ratio was impaired in SSc and whether this may be associated with other variables assessing the RV function.
Source: The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation - Category: Transplant Surgery Authors: Tags: 1236 Source Type: research