Study of Pulmonary Artery Pressure and Resistance in Sudanese Using Echocardiography

Abstract

Echocardiography is an important non invasive cardiac procedure which has revolutionized the practice of cardiology globally. Indirect assessment of mean pulmonary arterial pressure (MPAP) may assist management of critically ill patients with pulmonary hypertension and right heart dysfunction; however, this has not been validated in Sudan, the purpose of this study was to Study the Pulmonary Artery Pressure and Resistance in Sudanese Using Echocardiography. This was a cross-sectional observational study done using transthoracic color flow continuous wave Doppler echocardiography in Military hospital, Omdurman, Sudan. A total of three hundred consecutive patients 157 males and 143 females, their ages ranged from 20 to 69 years were studied. Age, weight, Right ventricle (RV) Dimensions (Cm), TV MAX ms, and Maximum velocity of tricuspid regurgitation (TR) were taken for all patients. The results of this study showed that the mean ± standard deviation of the patient age, weight (independent variables), Pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP), Right ventricle (RV) and tricuspid regurgitation (TR) Maximum velocity was: 37.2±11.1 years, 61.4±10.0 kg, 37.4±10.8 mmHg, 2.3±0.1 cm and 2.8±0.4 ms (dependent variables) respectively. The results also showed that there is strong and significance correlation between the dependent and independent variables at p <0.001 which gives a direct linear relationship where the dependent variables can be predicted successfully using patient age and weight; where for age the PASP increased by 0.68 mmHg/year starting at 12.2mmHg, TVmax increased by 0.024 ms/year starting at 1.9ms and RV increases by 0.006 cm/year starting at 2.1cm. also the patient weight can be used to predicted RV and PASP, where the RV increased by 0.005 cm/kg starting at 2.02 cm and PASP increased by 0.52 mmHg/kg starting at 5.4 mmHg. PASP mean for Sudanese’s is 33.08 mmHg . In conclusion the parameters of the pulmonary artery pressure and resistance can be predicted for the patient using the age and body weight as normative data for better judgment.