[Pulmonary artery compliance and its relation with pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with chronic obstructive...

In order to investigate pulmonary artery compliance (Cpa) and its relation with the clinical conditions and the other parameters of pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), we performed right heart Swan-Ganz catheterization in 146 COPD patients and measured their Cpa with Engelberg's method. The results showed that Cpa of BB type patients was lower than that of PP type ones; patients with pulmonary hypertension or cor pulmonale had lower Cpa than those without. These results suggest that Cpa in COPD patients decreases as their clinical condition worsens. Cpa had close relation with other pulmonary hemodynamic parameters. It had significant negative correlation with pulmonary arterial mean pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance and right ventricular stroke work index and significant positive correlation with cardiac index and stroke volume index. Using Engelberg's method as the standard, we also compared Reuben's, Wang's and Zhong's methods which are all simpler than Engelberg's method for measuring Cpa clinically. The results showed that Cpa measured with Wang's method was the closest to that measured with Engelberg's method.