In-hospital major bleeding predicts mortality in patients with pulmonary embolism: an analysis of ZATPOL Registry data.

Background: There are no data on the association between in-hospital bleeding and mortality in patients with pulmonary embolism (PE).

Objectives: To assess whether in-hospital major bleeding predicts in-hospital and 90-day mortality in patients with PE confirmed objectively using validated diagnostic criteria.

Methods: ZATPOL is a prospective national registry of consecutive patients with suspected PE admitted to 86 cardiology departments across Poland from January 2007 to September 2008.

Pulmonary artery dilatation correlates with the risk of unexpected death in chronic arterial or thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.

Background: Right ventricular failure does not explain all cases of death in patients with chronic pulmonary hypertension. Searching for alternative explanations, we evaluated the prognostic significance of main pulmonary artery (PA) dilatation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) or chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH).

Methods: A retrospective outcome analysis was made of 264 patients (aged 46 ± 17 years; women, 69%; PAH, 82%) who underwent both CT scan measurement of the PA and right-sided heart catheterization (mean PA pressure, 57.

Recurrent hemoptysis: an emerging life-threatening complication in idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Hemoptysis is a rarely reported complication of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH). We present the case of a 27-year-old woman with IPAH, who suffered from recurrent hemoptysis and who was treated with sitaxsentan and treprostinil and remained stable in World Health Organization functional class II. During several episodes of active hemoptysis, the patient underwent bronchial artery embolization (BAE), always with good immediate results.

Usefulness of echocardiography in the identification of an excessive increase in pulmonary arterial pressure in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Background: In systemic sclerosis (SSc), changes in the lungs and pulmonary hypertension (PH) are complications most adversely affecting the prognosis. Given the availability of specific treatment, early diagnosis of PH is very important. Exercise echocardiography, by increasing the patient's cardiac output, makes it possible to identify patients with elevated pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) during exercise.

[Abnormalities in high-resolution computed tomography of the lungs in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension -- correlation with hemodynamic parameters and prognostic significance].

Introduction: The risk stratification in idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) patients is currently based on haemodynamic and functional parameters as well as serum biomarker concentrations. Until now the importance of changes appearing in high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of the lungs of patients with IPAH has not been investigated.

Material And Methods: Lung HRCT scans were analysed retrospectively in 48 IPAH patients (patients): 37 women, 11 men, mean age 41 +/- 15 years.

Characteristics and prognosis of patients with decompensated right ventricular failure during the course of pulmonary hypertension.

Background: New therapies for pulmonary arterial hypertension have prolonged survival but simultaneously increased the number of hospital admissions because of decompensated right heart failure (DRHF). The optimal approach in DRHF has not been established yet.

Aim: Analysis of clinical course of DRHF in a group of patients with pulmonary hypertension treated in a single referral centre.

[Unusual cause of right heart failure decompensation in 21-years old patient with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension -- a case report].

The authors describe a case of 21-years old woman with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension with atypical clinical consequences of massive internal bleeding. Despite significant hypovolemia clinical and laboratory presentation was one of RV failure with dilatation of right heart ventricle and increased plasma level of markers of myocardial stretch and injury (NT-proBNP and troponin, respectively). This is attributed to impaired right ventricular coronary perfusion and hypoxia.