Semi-Automated Graphical System for Calculating Pulmonary Vascular Impedances in a Clinical Setting

Goal: Create a semi-automated, graphical, stand-alone application that uses clinically available asynchronous pressure and Doppler velocity captures to rapidly calculate, display, and interpret the pulmonary vascular impedance (PVZ) spectra. Methods: MATLAB-based software was written to analyze PVZ by creating a composite PVZ (cPVZ) spectra comprised of asynchronous screen captures of pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary arterial pulsed-wave Doppler velocity waveforms obtained during standard of care procedures. The pressure waveform, Doppler frequency envelopes, and ECG signals were re-digitized via automated border detection. cPVZ of averaged representative beats was calculated in the frequency domain via Fast Fourier Transform, and plotted vs harmonic z. Results: Successful generation of impedance spectra (PVZ(z)), where z is the harmonic, and additional parameters for characteristic impedance (Zc) and stiffness (Zs) were calculated as the mean of PVZ(2-4), and the sum of PVZ (1, 2), respectively. Conclusions: A graphically driven analysis of PVZ, calculated from standard of care right heart catheterization and echocardiography is possible. This system can help characterize both the steady and pulsatile components of right ventricular (RV) afterload in the clinical setting.