Cardiopulmonary exercise testing for detecting pulmonary arterial hypertension in systemic sclerosis

This study published on the Heart Journal analyses the diagnostic role of cardiopulmonary exercise test for detecting and ruling of systemic sclerosis pulmonary arterial hypertension (SSC-associated PAH).

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease with limited survival and occurs as a frequent complication in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). A definite diagnosis of PAH is obtained by right heart catheterisation (RHC); however, the initial suspicion is raised by non-invasive methods. We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of key parameters derived from cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) for detecting and ruling out SSc-associated PAH.

In a multicentre setting, we prospectively evaluated 173 consecutive patients with SSc without known PAH, but with clinical suspicion of PAH. Each patient underwent CPET and RHC.

The study conclusions show that "CPET is a safe and valuable method in the non-invasive detection of SSc-associated PAH. It may be particularly beneficial for reducing unnecessary RHC procedures".

The article details are the following:

- Title: "Cardiopulmonary exercise testing for detecting pulmonary arterial hypertension in systemic sclerosis"
- Authors: Daniel Dumitrescu, Christian Nage, Gabor Kovacs, Tom Bollmann, Michael Halank, Jörg Winkler, Martin Hellmich, Ekkehard Grünig, Horst Olschewski, Ralf Ewert, Stephan Rosenkranz
- Published in: Heart, January 2017

The study can be purchased at the following link: click here