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In 17 patients with atrial septal defect, in 12 patients with mitral stenosis and in four patients with unilateral lung tumor but without evidence of mitral valve disease, a similarity in pressure pulse contours in the left atrium and pulmonary artery wedge position was obtained at cardiac catheterization. It is concluded that the pulmonary artery wedge pressure pulse is a reasonably accurate reflection both in magnitude and in contour of the left atrial pressure pulse in man during normal respiration and also during assisted respiration at operation. N UMEROUS reports have been published concerning the relationship between the pulmonary artery wedge pressure and the left atrial pressure. Good correlation and considerable variation in the correlation have been variously reported between these pressures, measured consecutively in patients with atrial septal defect or simultaneously in experimental animals, so that considerable uncertainty still exists 1 ' 2 concerning the significance of pulmonary artery wedge pressures. Simultaneous recordings of pulmonary artery wedge and left atrial pressures in humans have been reported in previous communications from this laboratory. 3 * 5
Connolly et al. (Wed,) studied this question.