Invasive and Noninvasive Evaluation for the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Hypertension: How to Use and How to Combine Them

Abstract

The etiologic diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH) may be very challenging. Right-heart catheterization (RHC) in isolation cannot classify a precapillary PH patient into group 1, 3, 4, or 5. Moreover, RHC may be not sufficient for reaching a definitive differential diagnosis of precapillary or postcapillary PH if hemodynamic data are not integrated in clinical context and combined with information gleaned from noninvasive imaging. Therefore, only the integration of risk factors, clinical evaluation, invasive and noninvasive tests allows the physician to distinguish between different forms of PH.

Keywords: Echocardiography; Heart catheterization; Invasive; Noninvasive; Pulmonary hypertension.