WASHINGTON – Balloon pulmonary angioplasty provides meaningful improvements in functional capacity for patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) who are not candidates for surgical pulmonary thromboendarterectomy, according to a single-center experience with 15 consecutive patients that was presented at CRT 2018 sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Washington Hospital Center.
The treatment of choice for CTEPH is pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE), but “a huge percentage of the population with CTEPH” is not eligible or does not undergo surgical treatment, which was the impetus to initiate this intervention, reported Riyaz Bashir, MD, director of vascular and endovascular medicine at Temple University Hospital and professor of medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia.
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Dr. Riyaz Bashir
There have now been 15 CTEPH patients treated with BPA by Dr. Bashir and his team at Temple University. He reported 6-month outcome data on the first 13 patients, all of whom had a history of pulmonary embolism. Three of the patients had a prior PTE.
The primary outcome of interest in this series was functional improvement. Unlike PTE, immediate improvement in hemodynamics is not typically observed immediately after the procedure, but these measures do improve incrementally over time, Dr. Bashir reported. This is reflected in progressive improvements in the 6-minute walk test and in New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class.
Of the 13 patients treated so far, 6 (46%) were in NYHA class IV and only 2 (15%) were in NYHA class II prior to BPA. Six months after BPA, the proportions had reversed. At that point, seven patients (54%) were in class II and two (15%) in class IV. The remaining patients at both time points were in NYHA class III. Similar improvements were seen in the 6-minute walk test, which typically tracks with NYHA class.
Describing the first case, performed about 2 years ago, Dr. Bashir explained that a tight stenosis in the right lower pulmonary artery of a 44-year-old woman was reached with a multipurpose guiding catheter through femoral access. A 5-mm balloon was used to dilate the stenosis and create a pulsatile flow.