Publications by authors named "Alberto Ballerini"
Article Synopsis
- Haemodynamic variables like right atrial pressure and cardiac index are important in predicting survival for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), but additional prognostic factors are needed for better risk assessment.* -
- This study included 794 treatment-naïve PAH patients, evaluating various clinical and haemodynamic parameters before and after first-line therapy to identify relevant prognostic indicators through multivariate analysis.* -
- Results showed that certain haemodynamic measures, while not providing additional value over existing ESC/ERS risk tools for all-cause death, were useful for predicting combined outcomes like death and hospitalizations, showing comparable effectiveness.*
Background: Pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) has been the most effective therapy for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). However, there is a substantial proportion of patients deemed not operable in whom other treatment strategies are available: medical therapy and balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA). We aimed to compare different CTEPH treatment strategies effect in a real-world setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) may complicate both portal hypertension (Po-PAH) and HIV infection (HIV-PAH). These two conditions, however, frequently coexist in the same patient (HIV/Po-PAH). We evaluated clinical, functional, hemodynamic characteristics and prognostic parameters of these three groups of patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To optimise treatment of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), the 2015 European Society of Cardiology/European Respiratory Society guidelines recommend using risk stratification, with the aim of patients achieving low-risk status. Previous analyses of registries made progress in using risk stratification approaches, however, the focus is often on patients with a low-risk prognosis, whereas most PAH patients are in intermediate-risk or high-risk categories. Using only six parameters with high prognostic relevance, we aimed to demonstrate a pragmatic approach to individual patient risk assessment to discriminate between patients at low risk, intermediate risk and high risk of death.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) represents a therapeutic option for the treatment of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) in patients who are not eligible for surgical pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) or with persistent/recurrent symptomatic pulmonary arterial hypertension after PEA. This study evaluated the safety of BPA during 5 years of experience of the only Italian center systematically performing this procedure.
Methods: The BPA program was activated at the S.