Right ventricular pulsatile afterload and right ventriculo-arterial coupling in pulmonary hypertension

Contact address: Ruxandra Jurcut, Cardiology Department, Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases “Prof. Dr. C. C. Iliescu”, Sos. Fundeni 258, Sector 2 022328 Bucuresti, Romania e-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION In pulmonary hypertension (PH), right ventricular (RV) function is correlated with functional status and is a strong predictor of survival, whereas the pulmonary artery (PA) pressures are not strongly correlated with symptoms or outcome. Even if treatment decreases pulmonary arterial resistance, this is not necessarily translated in improvement of outcome1. On the other hand, pressure and resistance represent only one aspect of ventricular afterload, the other one being arterial compliance, as refl ected by stiffness parameters. Therefore, it is important to study the RV and the pulmonary arterial tree as a unit, with all their aspects, to further the understanding of the physiopathology of PH and to eventually improve the outcome of patients with PH.