Heart CT Scan & Pulmonary Hypertension

A CT of the chest is generally planned while appraising a patient for pulmonary hypertension; the reason is that it is a valuable device as far as recognition of lung diseases is concerned.  

Constitutional features recognizable on computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiography can offer prognostic information for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. 292 patients who were incorporated in the ASPIRE registry between 2006 and 2010 and had gone through CT pulmonary angiography and high-resolution CT within three months of catheterization of right heart. During subsequent check outs, one hundred and twelve of these patients passed away; it was established that two features which forecasted death were:

1. Inferior vena cava area 
2. Existence of pleural effusion / septal lines.

It was found that since both these features are the outcome of increased pressure in the right atrium, hence are not amazingly associated with a disfavored outcome. These results on the CT scan make a doctor attentive to the fact that such patients plunge into a deprived predictive group encouraging essential recommendation for specialist assessment and treatment. Other features such as ground glass opacities are good enough to make the doctors conscientious to the likelihood of Pulmonary Artery Hypertension in case the scan was carried out for an unexplained breathlessness. In comparison a centrilobular (pertaining to the central portion of a lobule) ground glass prototype with a very huge and luminal calcification, endorses the likelihood of a contributory congenital heart problem.