From Not Detected Pulmonary Embolism to Diagnosis of Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

The past and present clinical history of 13 patients with hemodynamic and angiographic diagnosis of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTPH) was reviewed in order to investigate the reasons for failure of resolution of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) and findings useful for diagnosis of CTPH. All patients had chest radiograph, ECG, arterial blood gas analysis and pulmonary perfusion scintigraphy performed. Clinical assessment demonstrated that no patient had diagnosis and treatment of the several retrospectively identified episodes of PE (from 1 to 8); the lack of diagnosis was due to underestimation of symptoms and signs such as dyspnea (85%), pleuritic chest pain (31%) or phlebitis (46%) that were present months or years earlier. Alternative diagnoses erroneously made were dyspnea of unknown origin (5 cases), left heart failure (4 instances) and pneumonia (2 cases). Once CTPH has developed, chronic dyspnea (92%) and substernal chest pain (100%) are almost always present: chest radiograph and ECG show signs of chronic hypertension such as enlargement of hila (100%), right heart sections (77%), azygos vein (46%) and P pulmonale (67%), T inversion on right precordial leads (75%), S-T segment depression (75%), respectively. Perfusion scintigraphy shows severe perfusion impairment (55.7% of the total vascular bed) paralleled by severe hypoxia (standard PaO₂ = 49 ± 14.1 mm Hg). In conclusion, patients with PE who develop CTPH are not diagnosed and thus untreated because clinical symptoms and signs of acute PE have not been recognized. If CTPH develops, clinical assessment (including simple and noninvasive techniques such as chest radiograph, ECG and blood gas analysis) may show a quite characteristic pattern useful for diagnosis.

The efficacy of pulmonary thromboendarterectomy on long-term gas exchange

“…Only PTE may be performed, even in high-risk patients. Moreover, PALLA et al [32] showed that the patients with CTEPH usually had no diagnosis and treatment for the several retrospectively identified episodes of pulmonary embolism. Our future goals will be to improve the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism, and to further improve diagnostic accuracy of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and surgical outcome.…”

Longitudinal analysis of perfusion lung scintigrams of patients with unoperated chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension

“…Patient #6 of Table 1 was a ventriculo-atrial shunt carrier and had experienced shunt infection and thrombosis ten years prior to the diagnosis. Taken together, the time lapse between the potential initiating event and the diagnosis is hard to estimate for the whole group (13), and lies anywhere between 1.5 and ten years.…”