Misclassification of Pulmonary Hypertension Due to Reliance on Pulmonary Capillary Wedge Pressure Rather Than Left Ventricular End-Diastolic Pressure

Roughly half of the patients presumed to have PAH based on PCWP may be found to have PVH based on LVEDP. Reliance on PCWP may result in the dangerous or cost-ineffective use of pulmonary vasodilators for patients with left-heart disease. Furthermore, without assessing LVEDP, investigators may include patients with left-heart disease in therapeutic trials of PAH drugs, thereby limiting their ability to detect beneficial drug effects.