New Aspects of Echocardiographic Assessment of Pulmonary Hypertension

In recent years, the assessment of pulmonary hypertension (PH) has gained more and more consideration in the clinical and scientific community, since many different conditions, including primary and secondary etiologies, may lead to PH. The possibility to noninvasively estimate pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) by echocardiography is of recognized utility for the screening and follow-up of PH. Along with PH estimation, a thorough evaluation of the right heart morphology, function, and hemodynamics is of paramount importance in patients with PH. In the last few years, many different echocardiographic techniques were proposed to improve the classic 2D assessment of the right heart, which suffers from significant limitations. Together with the more established tissue Doppler imaging, myocardial strain and speckle tracking and 3D echocardiography have emerged as very promising ultrasound methods to improve the overall assessment of patients with PH. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.