Echocardiographic estimation of elevated right ventricular afterload in preterm infants at risk for pulmonary hypertension: next steps

We read with interest the report by Levy et al,1 in which the authors use sophisticated echocardiographic variables as surrogates for right ventricular (RV) afterload (or pulmonary hemodynamic measures) and provide data on RV abnormalities in a cohort of infants born preterm with or without bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) vs healthy infants born at term, at age 1 year. They report that right heart Doppler-derived echocardiographic indices of pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) (eg, pulmonary artery acceleration time [PAAT]) are inversely correlated with gestational age.

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