Appropriate Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty for Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension Improves Right Ventricular Ejection Fraction via Lung Perfusion Scan

Balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) is a robust treatment and has been performed among patients with inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). A lung perfusion scan (LPS) is required for inspection in deciding the curative effect judgment and treatment lesion of BPA. Nevertheless, the impact of BPA in the improvement of right heart system function is not well known. We investigated whether BPA improves right heart function alongside other parameters.We studied 20 patients with CTEPH (mean age 63.6 ± 15.9 years, male 30.0%) who underwent BPA. All study sets including right heart catheter, pulmonary angiography, 6-minute walk test (6MWT), blood gas analysis, and LPS were performed before BPA treatment. All parameters using right heart catheter and oxygenation level were measured at room air temperature. Regarding LPS, right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) was calculated using the first-pass method. These parameters before BPA were compared with those after BPA.In total, 120 BPAs were performed (mean number of procedures/patient; 6.0 ± 2.4 sessions). Per BPA session, 6.0 ± 2.4 areas and 10.0 ± 4.3 lesions were treated with a volume of 181.3 ± 53.5 mL of contrast media. No complication required an invasive procedure. World Health Organization functional class, 6MWT, pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance, and oxygenation level were significantly improved after BPA. RVEF via LPS was also significantly improved after BPA (45.0 ± 6.2% to 50.6 ± 2.9%, P < 0.001).In the present study, we found that RVEF via LPS was improved through appropriate BPA alongside the other parameters. It would be useful to be able to evaluate right heart function.