Echocardiographically-Derived Septal Positional Angle to Gauge Right Ventricular Pressure Load

Background: Pulmonary hypertension is a rare disease that can have many long-term consequences, including death. Cardiac catheterization is the gold standard for measuring right ventricular systolic pressures (RVSP), but is invasive and has potentially deadly complications. Non-invasive echocardiographic parameters used to identify and monitor pulmonary hypertension only crudely approximate RVSP. The aim of this study was to create a quantifiable measure of RVSP using septal positioning that is easy to perform, reproducible with low inter-reader variability, and can accurately …