Henriques King M, Ogbuka IC, Bond VC. Pulmonary arterial hypertension confirmed by right heart catheterization following COVID-19 pneumonia: A case report and review of literature. World J Respirol 2023; 12(1): 10-15 [DOI: 10.5320/wjr.v12.i1.10]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ifeoma Chiamaka Ogbuka, MD, Doctor, Hospital Medicine, Covenant Health, 244 Fort Saunders West Blvd, Knoxville, TN 37922, United States. icdwrites@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Respiratory System
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Respirol. May 26, 2023; 12(1): 10-15 Published online May 26, 2023. doi: 10.5320/wjr.v12.i1.10
Pulmonary arterial hypertension confirmed by right heart catheterization following COVID-19 pneumonia: A case report and review of literature
Marshaleen Henriques King, Ifeoma Chiamaka Ogbuka, Vincent C Bond
Marshaleen Henriques King, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30310, United States
Ifeoma Chiamaka Ogbuka, Hospital Medicine, Covenant Health, Knoxville, TN 37922, United States
Vincent C Bond, Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry & Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30310, United States
Author contributions: Henriques King M, Ogbuka IC, and Bond VC contributed equally to this work; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Patient in this case report provided informed written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ifeoma Chiamaka Ogbuka, MD, Doctor, Hospital Medicine, Covenant Health, 244 Fort Saunders West Blvd, Knoxville, TN 37922, United States. icdwrites@gmail.com
Received: December 31, 2022 Peer-review started: December 31, 2022 First decision: January 20, 2023 Revised: February 24, 2023 Accepted: May 8, 2023 Article in press: May 8, 2023 Published online: May 26, 2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a disease of the arterioles resulting in an increased resistance in pulmonary circulation with associated high pressures in the pulmonary arteries, causing irreversible remodeling of the pulmonary arterial walls. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with development of new onset PAH in the literature leading to symptoms of dyspnea, cough and fatigue that persist in spite of resolution of acute COVID-19 infection. However, the majority of these cases of COVID related PAH were diagnosed using echocardiographic data or via right heart catheterization in mechanically ventilated patients.
CASE SUMMARY
Our case is the first reported case of COVID related PAH diagnosed by right heart catheterization in a non-mechanically ventilated patient. Right heart catheterization has been the gold standard for diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension. Our patient had right heart catheterization four months after her initial COVID-19 infection due to persistent dyspnea.
CONCLUSION
This revealed new onset PAH that developed following her infection with COVID-19, an emerging sequela of the infection
Core Tip: Pulmonary arterial hypertension has been reported in literature as a cardiovascular complication of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To our knowledge, this is the first case report of pulmonary arterial hypertension confirmed by right heart catheterization in a non-ventilated patient following infection with COVID-19 complicated by hypoxic respiratory insufficiency.
