The age of the patient should be taken into account when interpreting Doppler assessed pulmonary artery pressures

The impact of aging on the systolic artery pressure (SPAP) value is not well known. We selected 134 echocardiographic Doppler examinations considered as normal (presence of a sinus rhythm, absence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or pulmonary embolism, normal global or segmental wall motion, no right or left ventricular hypertrophy or dilatation, no significant valvular disease, no pericarditis), with a clearly measurable tricuspid insufficiency allowing us to measure the SPAP with the simplified Bernoulli equation. There was a highly significant (p = 0.0001) correlation (r = 0.47) between SPAP values and the age of the patient. SPAP increased progressively with age from 23 +/- 5 mm Hg between 20 to 29 years old to 32 +/- 6 mm Hg when 80 years old or more. The interpretation of the SPAP should take into account the age.