Thoracopagus is the most common form of conjoined twins. Cardiovascular evaluation is necessary to establish the existence of 2 separate hearts before planning surgical separation of the twins. This is usually done by cardiac ultrasound, cardiac catheterization, documenting 2 separate pulse rates on physical examination, and the presence of 2 independent QRS complexes on simultaneously recorded...

BACKGROUND Determining the cause for pulmonary hypertension is difficult in many patients. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is differentiated from pulmonary venous hypertension (PVH) by a wedge pressure (PWP)>15 mm Hg in PVH. Patients undergoing right heart catheterization for evaluation of pulmonary hypertension may be dehydrated and have reduced intravascular volume, potentially leading ...

BACKGROUND The majority of the literature on catheterization-induced heart block (CIHB) was published >30 years ago. The field of cardiac catheterization has evolved, performing more interventional compared with diagnostic cases. We sought to determine the incidence and risk factors of CIHB. METHODS AND RESULTS A catheterization database that records the occurrence of adverse events on all ca...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) remains a concern in patients with β-thalassemia major (TM) and intermedia (TI); however, studies evaluating its prevalence and risk factors using systematic confirmation on right heart catheterization are lacking. METHODS AND RESULTS This was a multicenter cross-sectional study of 1309 Italian β-thalassemia patients (mean age 36.4±9.3 years; 4...

In I970, Swan and associates reported on their results in catheterization of the right heart with a soft, flow-directed, balloon-tipped catheter of their design. Using the 5F size catheter the pulmonary artery was rapidly and safely catheterized in 95 per cent of patients in intensive care situations without the aid of fluoroscopy. The availability of the Swan-Ganz catheter (Edwards Laboratorie...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To examine changes over time in the utilization of and factors associated with pulmonary artery (PA) catheterization in patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). DESIGN Nonconcurrent prospective study carried out in 16 teaching and community hospitals in Worcester, Mass, in seven time periods between 1975 and 1990. A total of 5,480 patients hospitalized wit...

Assessment of the severity of aortic stenosis remains a commonly encountered clinical problem. Noninvasive evaluation has to date not proven sufficiently accurate in most cases to permit clinical decision making in the individual patient. Therefore, cardiac catheterization and measurement of the valve area with use of the Gorlin equation remains the standard approach in patients with suspected ...

BACKGROUND Right heart catheterization is the gold standard for assessment of pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. To date, MRI has not been able to produce precise measurements of mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mPAP). The purpose of the study was to create a model for estimating mPAP and pulmonary vascular resistance in patients with chronic...

A critical aspect of most cardiac catheterization procedures is the evaluation of myocardial function. At its simplest, this consists of a visual assessment of the left ventricular (LV) contractile pattern from the left ventriculogram, together with measurements of LV end-diastolic pressure. In laboratories where most patients have right-sided heart catheterization and cardiac output measuremen...

The constant (C= 3I) in the hydraulicformulafor calculation of mitral valve area was originally empirically determined by comparison of measured valve area at operation or necropsy with right heart catheterization data. This constant corrects, among other things, for overestimation of the diastolic filling and mitral valve gradient derived from a peripheral arterial tracing and pulmonary capill...