EXPRESS: Echocardiographic Assessment of Right Ventricular Functions in Experimental Pulmonary Hypertension

Echocardiography, a noninvasive and cost-effective method for monitoring cardiac functions, is commonly used for evaluation and pre-clinical diagnostics of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Previous echocardiographic studies in experimental models of PH are fragmentary in terms of the evaluation of right ventricle (RV) function. In this study, three rodent models of PH: a mouse model of hypoxia-induced PH, rat models of hypoxia sugen and monocrotaline induced PH, were employed to measured RV fractional area change (RVFAC), RV free wall thickness (RVFWT), pulmonary acceleration time (PAT), pulmonary ejection time (PET) and tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE). We found that, in these models, RVFWT significantly increased, but RVFAC, PAT or PAT/PET ratios and TAPSE values significantly decreased. Accurate and complete TAPSE patterns were demonstrated in the three rodent models of PH. The RV echocardiography data matches each corresponding invasive hemodynamic and heart histologic data in these models. This serves as a reference study for real-time and noninvasive evaluation of RV function in rodent models of PH using echocardiography.