Evaluation of Echocardiographic Indices and Blood Biomarkers in Group 1 Pulmonary Hypertension

Introduction:

Pulmonary hypertension is pathophysiological condition defined as increases of mean pulmonary artery pressure above 20 mmHg as assessed by right heart catheterization (RHC) (1).

As pulmonary hypertension has a variety of causes with different clinical presentations and characteristics; it is classified into five clinical groups (2):

• Group 1 and also called pulmonary arterial hypertension group.
• Group 2 due to left sided heart diseases.
• Group 3 caused by chronic lung diseases and hypoxemia.
• Group 4 caused by chronic pulmonary artery occlusions.
• Group 5 that has unclear and multifactorial causes. Although group 1 less common; it is carrying significant clinical importance as early detection can improve the patient's outcome through providing them the available vasodilator medications.

To diagnose patient in group 1 PH, the patient should have RHC (3) to obtain the definite hemodynamic before starting treatment as advised by PH guidelines, however RHC is invasive and expensive procedure and carrying some bad drawback (4).