Magnetic Resonance Imaging Provides Non-Invasive Assessment of Pulmonary Hypertension Severity by Reduced Relative Area Change of the Pulmonary Artery

INTRODUCTION Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a disease of the distal pulmonary arteries that results in an elevation in pulmonary arterial resistance and pressure [1]. Currently, right heart catheterization is the gold standard for assesment of PAH. The relative cross sectional area change (RAC) of the main pulmonary artery may be a useful non-invasive measure of PAH severity [2]. Here, we use magnetic resonance (MR) imaging to measure the cross sectional area of the main pulmonary artery (MPA) at different times during the cardiac cycle. Preliminary results on the utility of this metric are presented based on five PAH patients and four healthy controls.