When exploring patients during exercise makes sense?

Abstract

This editorial refers to ‘Clinical characteristics and determinants of exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension in patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction’, by A. Young Lim et al. doi: 10.1093/ehjci/jew199. Dealing with exertional dyspnoea or unexplained shortness of breath is a common problem in clinical practice. However, the exploration of such symptoms is difficult and does not always lead to definite positive diagnosis and thus appropriate treatment. Moreover, the perception of dyspnoea is subjective and relies on determinants that are often unclear. In these patients, exploring pulmonary pressures and diastolic function during exercise appears to be an interesting way to assess the potential causes triggering their symptoms. In this issue of European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging , Lim et al. 1 present a remarkable study exploring the value of exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension (EIPH) in patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction and complaining about unexplained dyspnoea. This exhaustive work included a large number of patients (1383 were analysed) and enabled a comprehensive description of the clinical aspects and features of EIPH in this population. To date, this population has not been well characterized, so the data published in this issue allow interesting insights in this not-so-well-known clinical entity. EIPH has been explored and demonstrated as clinically interesting in the field of heart valve diseases and in the prognostic assessment of patients diagnosed for a heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.2–4 Notably, larger studies confirming those first results are mandatory to justify a more generalized use of exercise stress echocardiography in our routine clinical practice. The first surprising fact in the study by Lim et al . appears to be the population with …