[Measurement of pulmonary arterial pressure]

Several Doppler methods may be used to measure pulmonary pressures and diagnose pulmonary hypertension. They are analyses of the pulmonary systolic flow, the pulmonary diastolic flow, the flow of tricuspid insufficiency and the interventricular communication. Although none of these methods is perfect, they however enable to diagnose in almost all cases a pulmonary hypertension. The simplest and most reliable method appears to be the determination of the tricuspid systolic flow (tricuspid insufficiency) which enables to calculate, with the modified Bernouilli's equation, the right ventricular systolic pressure and consequently the pulmonary systolic pressure. Thus the ultrasound Doppler has replaced other non invasive techniques in the evaluation of pulmonary pressures.