Doppler echocardiographic predictions of pulmonary artery pressure in children with congenital heart disease.

Continuous wave Doppler echocardiography was used to examine the accuracy of predictions of pulmonary artery pressure by means of main pulmonary artery flow velocity in children with congenital heart disease, without pulmonary stenosis. The ratio of acceleration time to ejection time (AT/ET) was correlated to catheterized mean pulmonary artery pressure. The result was: mean pulmonary pressure equal to 120-2.4 (AT/ET x 100), r = 0.92, SEE = 7.9 mmHg, P value less than 10(-6). We then used this equation prospectively to predict mean pulmonary artery pressure in 20 children. The result was: catheterized mean pulmonary artery pressure equal to 0.9 predicted pressure minus 0.3, r = 0.94, SEE = 4.8 mmHg, 95 per cent confidence limit interval of X coefficient was 0.8 to 1.2. This result suggested that continuous wave Doppler predictions of pulmonary artery pressure correlate significantly with values subsequently obtained at catheterization.