Non-invasive Diagnostics of Pulmonary Hypertension With Dual Energy Computed Tomography

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare, life-threatening disease. It is characterized by the elevation of pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance. A remodeling of small pulmonary vessels characterized by the proliferation of the adventitia, the hypertrophy of the media and fibrosis of the intima can be observed on the microscopic level. Non-invasive techniques for hemodynamic assessment and identification of early pulmonary vascular remodeling and pulmonary hypertension have a marked practical advantage as compared to invasive right heart catheterization, however, their accuracy and reliability is not well established. In the present study the investigators examine patients who are scheduled for a thorax CT with an additional dynamic contrast-enhanced DE-CT protocol and derive established parameters for the diagnosis of PAH as well as novel parameters from the CT scans. These are compared to results from the right-heart catheterization and other investigations routinely carried out on these patients.