Doppler echocardiography inaccurately estimates right ventricular pressure in children with elevated right heart pressure

摘要

I commend the work of Groh et al) looking at the differences in estimating right ventricular pressures (i.e., tricuspid valve gradients) using Doppler echocardiography compared with catheter-measured pressures. Doppler-derived tricuspid valve gradients are ubiquitous in pe-diatric echocardiography, so understanding their accuracy is a very important matter. I especially commend the authors' including the assessment of spectral Doppler envelope quality in their work (which is a step missing in numerous previously published works from others) and their decision to compare maximal right ventricular-right atrial pressure differences calculated from Doppler velocity recordings with invasive results, while others have generally compared calculated right ventricular systolic pressures determined by Doppler, which requires estimation of right atrial pressures.