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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Increasing Pulmonary Artery Pulsatile Flow Improves Hypoxic Pulmonary Hypertension in Piglets
Published on: May 11, 2015
Pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with slow-flow vascular malformations
Moisés Rodríguez-Mañero1, Leyre Aguado, Pedro Redondo
1Department of Cardiology, University Clinic of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Objective:
To determine the prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension in asymptomatic patients with 2 types of extensive slow-flow vascular malformations: extensive venous malformations or Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome (KTS).
Design:
Case-control.
Setting:
Multidisciplinary center for vascular anomalies.
Patients:
A consecutive sample of 32 patients with slow-flow vascular malformations of at least 15% of the body surface was identified retrospectively and matched by age and sex with 32 healthy controls.
Interventions:
Standard 2-dimensional transthoracic Doppler echocardiography. Venous samples were obtained the same day that echocardiography was performed.
Main Outcome Measures:
Pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) was determined. Levels of D-dimer, fibrinogen, and von Willebrand factor (vWF) in plasma were measured.
Results:
Patients had a mean (SD) PASP that was significantly higher than that of healthy controls (42.16 [8.49] mm Hg in patients vs 27.69 [6.54] mm Hg in healthy controls; P < .001). No significant differences in PASP were found between patients with KTS and patients with venous malformations (P = .80). We observed significant differences in the mean (SD) levels of vWF between patients and healthy controls (124.41% [52.28%] in patients vs 92.69% [28.92%] in controls; P = .01) and also in levels of D-dimer (1032.99 [1367.0] ng/mL in patients vs 102.97 [29.39] ng/mL in healthy controls; P < .001). There was a moderate positive correlation between levels of vWF and levels of PASP (r = 0.42; P = .001) and a high positive correlation between D-dimer and PASP (r = 0.52; P < .001)
Conclusions:
The presence of pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with extensive slow-flow vascular malformations is not an isolated feature but is relatively frequent. Levels of D-dimer correlate with PASP in these patients.
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