[Semi-invasive measurement of pulmonary pressure as a method of evaluating cardiac function in hypertension and ischemic heart disease. Experience at Charité Hospital for more than 20 years].

Since 1969, microcatheterization (floating catheterization) of the pulmonary artery has systematically been used at the Hospital Charité in Berlin for measuring (indirectly) the left ventricular filling pressure. That seemed especially be justified in patients in whom conventional catheterization was not needed. Noninvasive techniques had not been available.

[Percutaneous transvascular pulmonary valvuloplasty. Early and late results].

Since the introduction into practice in may 1986 at the Institute of Cardiovascular Diagnostics we performed 45 valvuloplasties until March 1990 in 34 children (6.2 +/- 4.9 years old) and 11 adults (29.

[Differing acute effects of propranolol on the hypertensive heart during exercise].

Exercise investigations were performed in 39 male hypertensives (WHO stage I-III) to assess haemodynamics and cardiac function after intravenous application of 5 mg propranolol for the detection of latent heart failure. Radiocardiography was used to determine volumetric parameters such as LV end-diastolic volume and ejection fraction, and microcatheterization was employed to obtain the LV filling pressure via pressure measurement in the pulmonary artery (PA). The negative inotropic and chronotropic effects of propranolol on pump function and myocardial mechanics at rest were found to be minimal.

[The heart in hypertension].

After indications to the great epidemiologic importance of hypertensive heart disease and its relationship with the ischaemic heart disease several results are reported collected during the past 10 years by examinations of more than 500 patients for early diagnosis of cardiac insufficiency in hypertension. The methods of microcatheterization of the pulmonary artery and radiography have been used (even under ergometrical exercise) as well as the calibrated apex cardiography and the echocardiography. For the practising physician a classification of hypertensive heart disease with 4 phases or forms is proposed.