[The importance of pulmonary angiography in the surgical treatment of congenital heart defects with a left-right shunt and pulmonary hypertension].

The studied series consisted of 14 patients with ventricular septal defect and pulmonary hypertension aged from 3 months to 15 years. Three examination methods were compared: (1) Invasive hemodynamic examination; (2) Pulmoangiographic examination by means of wedge peripheral pulmoangiography; (3) Histological examination of bioptic samples. Direct correlation was found to exist between mean PA pressure, PAR/m2, TPR/SR and pulmoangiographic records, in which the following parameters were evaluated: (a) length of the narrowing of the peripheral branch of the PA, (b) background opacity, (c) circulation time. The histological findings obtained in the bioptic samples corresponded practically in all cases with the hemodynamic and PAG findings. Only in two patients did the histological picture display a less severe degree of affection than found by PAG and hemodynamic examination. The obtained results suggest that in light of surgical indications, PAG can be considered a suitable and valuable supplementary method in assessing borderline findings of pulmonary hypertension in children with congenital heart defects and left-to-right shunt.