Learning and research

To study the contribution of QRS prolongation to transplant-free survival, we conducted an observational study of 68 patients with sarcoidosis-related pulmonary hypertension. Every 10-ms increase in QRS interval was associated with an adjusted HR of 1.23 (95% CI: 1.06, 1.44) for the composite outcome of lung transplantation and all-cause mortality.

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a leading cause of mortality in lung transplant recipients, with early cases associated with particularly poor outcomes. Identified risk factors include elevated BMI, renal dysfunction, ABO mismatch, donor malignancy, and specific immunosuppressive agents. Tailored risk assessments and targeted interventions are essential to mitigating PE-related mortality.

Benchmarks of clinical management are essential for improving the quality of care. However, the lack of established quality metrics for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) contributes to practice heterogeneity. We assessed our center's diagnostic practices, therapeutic practices, and risk-adjusted survival patterns over time for the purpose of establishing quality benchmarks. 

In this Community Call, we discussed:

• Defining echocardiographic degrees of right heart size and function in pulmonary vascular disease from the PVDOMICS study
• Skeletal muscle SIRT3 deficiency contributes to pulmonary vascular remodeling in pulmonary hypertension due to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

Direct Fick (DF) and bolus thermodilution (TD) are endorsed by pulmonary hypertension (PH) guidelines to measure cardiac output. In contemporary practice, agreement between methods is unknown, as are the diagnostic consequences of disagreement. 

Epoprostenol is a prostaglandin that was first identified by investigators in 1976 and found to be a potent vasodilator and inhibiter of platelet aggregation, initially in animal studies and subsequently in humans.

Perspectives on Global Epidemiology Challenges is part of the Virtual Symposium series by the iPVD, a global education programme that highlights top-notch research on inflammation and infectious PVD.

Although right ventricle (RV) dysfunction drives clinical worsening in pulmonary hypertension (PH), information about RV function has not been well integrated in PH risk assessment. The gold standard for assessing RV function and ventriculo-arterial coupling is the construction of multi-beat pressure–volume (PV) loops.

In the study “Echocardiographic grading of right ventricular afterload in left heart disease: relation to right ventricular function, pulsatile and resistant load, and outcome,” Bech-Hanssen et al. addressed an interesting topic about severity gradation using right ventricular (RV) afterload echocardiographic assessment.