Reply

We thank Koestenberger and Hansmann for their interest in our article on pulmonary artery acceleration time (PAAT) measures in preterm infants.1 The true prevalence of pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) and its most severe form, pulmonary hypertension (PH), in preterm infants has been difficult to discern due to the lack of reliable noninvasive indices to account for the main components of right ventricular (RV) afterload. Pulmonary artery acceleration time (PAAT) measures are validated, reliable estimates of invasive pulmonary hemodynamics in children and infants and provide a quantitative method for defining blood flow velocity characteristics in the RV outflow tract in response to changes in ventricular mechanical performance, pulmonary vascular load, and compliance.

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