Pulmonary Vascular Response Patterns to Exercise: Is There a Role for Pulmonary Arterial Pressure Assessment During Exercise in the Post-Dana Point Era?

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is often diagnosed late in its course when it purports a particularly poor prognosis. Exercise effectively unmasks early forms of several cardiopulmonary diseases but the role of performing pulmonary arterial pressure measurements during exercise in the evaluation of PH remains unclear. Whether pulmonary arterial pressure-flow relationships during exercise may provide a window into earlier diagnosis of functionally significant pulmonary arterial hypertension and left ventricular dysfunction,¹ or add incrementally to our armentarium of diagnostic tests and prognostic indicators in PH, is the topic of active ongoing investigation. Evidence is emerging that abnormal pulmonary arterial pressure response patterns to exercise, when properly indexed to increased blood flow, may help to identify early forms of heart failure and pulmonary arterial hypertension. This article will discuss approaches to performing hemodynamic measurements during exercise as well as the potential clinical utility of identifying normal and abnormal pulmonary vascular response patterns to exercise.