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Our study aimed to determine the prevalence of occult left-heart disease in patients with scleroderma and pulmonary hypertension. In patients with pulmonary hypertension (mean pulmonary artery pressure (mean PAP) ≥25 mmHg), differentiation between pre- and post-capillary pulmonary hypertension has been made according to pulmonary artery wedge pressure (PAWP) less than or more than 15 mmHg, respectively.

We performed a retrospective chart review of 107 scleroderma patients. All patients with suspected pulmonary hypertension had routine right or left heart catheterisation with left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) measurement pre-/post-fluid challenge. We extracted demographic, haemodynamic and echocardiographic data. Patients were classified into one of four groups: haemodynamically normal (mean PAP<25 mmHg); pulmonary venous hypertension (PVH) (mean PAP≥25 mmHg …