Methodist DeBakey cardiovascular journal
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Patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) present with highly variable clinical symptoms and often have accompanying comorbidities. Timely diagnosis and treatment are critical to help prevent recurrence and increased morbidity/mortality. While open surgical thrombectomy was once reserved only for those with massive PE and hemodynamic compromise, it has been reevaluated with a focus on careful patient selection and early intervention. ⋯ In addition, improved diagnostic capabilities have allowed for expedited diagnosis and treatment of patients with life-threatening PE. At our institution, a hybrid room allows patients suspected of having a massive or submassive PE to undergo on-table contrast-enhanced cone-beam computed tomography scan, thus creating a high-resolution 3-dimensional image of the arterial system that can provide immediate guidance for therapeutic intervention. This review highlights the array of therapeutic options currently used in our armamentarium at the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center and describes our development of a pulmonary angioplasty procedure that we believe will greatly facilitate selective thrombus removal in the acute PE setting.
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Methodist Debakey Cardiovasc J · Oct 2016
ReviewChronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension: Pearls and Pitfalls of Diagnosis.
Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is characterized by chronic obstruction of major pulmonary arteries by organized thromboembolic material. Untreated CTEPH can result in pulmonary hypertension and eventually right heart failure, yet it is the only form of pulmonary hypertension that is potentially curable with surgical or catheter-based intervention. While early diagnosis is key to increasing the likelihood of successful treatment, CTEPH remains largely underdiagnosed. This article reviews the role of echocardiogram, ventilation/perfusion scan, and other available modalities in the diagnosis of CTEPH.
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Methodist Debakey Cardiovasc J · Oct 2016
ReviewTreatment of Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension: The Role of Medical Therapy and Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty.
Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is a potentially curable disease when treated with pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE). However, even at experienced surgical centers, nearly one-third of patients with CTEPH will be deemed inoperable for reasons including distal disease, comorbidities, or out-of-proportion pulmonary hypertension. It is in these patients with inoperable CTEPH that pulmonary hypertension (PH)-targeted medical therapy and balloon pulmonary angioplasty have potential therapeutic value. ⋯ Balloon pulmonary angioplasty is an interventional procedure using telescoping catheters placed in the pulmonary arteries, through which wires and balloons are used to mechanically disrupt chronic clot material and relieve pulmonary vascular obstruction. Contemporary case series from multiple centers worldwide have demonstrated pulmonary hemodynamic improvement with this approach. As a result of these advances, patients with inoperable CTEPH who had few options as recently as 5 years ago now have alternatives with emerging evidence of therapeutic efficacy.