Validation of a non-invasive filling pressure (NIFP) device for measuring cardiac pressure and assessing congestion levels in patients with heart failure.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a high-burden clinical syndrome characterized by intravascular and extravascular congestion, impacting patients' outcomes. Current diagnostic methods for assessing intravascular congestion, including right heart catheterization (RHC), have some limitations. There is a need for accurate, stable, and widely applicable non-invasive measurement methods to improve HF diagnosis and treatment.

Methods: We conducted non-invasive filling pressure (NIFP) measurements in 74 patients before or after RHC. The correlation between recorded factors and pulmonary arterial wedge pressure (PAWP) values was examined. We tested NIFP's performance as a predictive tool for PAWP using different thresholds. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient were used for data analysis.

Results: NIFP measurement served as an independent impact factor and showed a definite relationship with PAWP in both univariate and multivariate regression analyses (all p < 0.05). NIFP demonstrated moderate accuracy in predicting PAWP values (all AUC > 0.75), particularly among patients without arrhythmia [AUC for Model 1 (PAWP >15): 0.80; AUC for Model 2 (PAWP >18): 0.85].

Conclusions: The NIFP device represents a promising innovation, offering non-invasive and user-friendly solution for precisely measuring pulmonary arterial wedge pressure (PAWP) and assessing the degree of congestion.