Cardiopulmonary exercise testing to detect chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension in patients with normal echocardiography

Background: Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is a serious complication of pulmonary embolism (PE). Taking into account the reported incidence of CTEPH after acute PE, there might be a high rate of patients with undiagnosed CTEPH. Objectives: We aimed to determine if cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) could serve as complementary tool in diagnosis of CTEPH and can detect CTEPH in patients with normal echocardiography. Methods: We analysed the data of CPET parameters at diagnosis of 42 subjects with proven CTEPH and 51 controls and evaluated the performance of two scores. Results: VE/VCO2…