ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
Effects of balloon pulmonary angioplasty on cardiac and pulmonary functions and complications in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertensionchronic thrombotic pulmonary hypertension
Provisionally accepted
Heng Wang
Mingzhe Cui*- Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Henan, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: To explore the effects of balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) on cardiac and pulmonary functions and complications in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertensionchronic thrombotic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). Methods: From February 2023 to December 2024, one hundred patients with CTEPH at our hospital underwent BPA treatment were selected. The WHO cardiac function classification, right heart catheterization parameters, cardiac function indexes, levels of NT-proBNP, TNF-α and IL-6, exercise tolerance, pulmonary function indexes, pulmonary artery pressure, and blood gas indexes were compared before BPA and 3 months after the last BPA. The BPA-related complications were recorded. Results: Compared with before BPA, the WHO cardiac function classification of Grade I, Grade II and Grade III was significantly improved three months after the last BPA (P=0.003, P=0.020, P=0.000), the mPAP and PVR were significantly lower (P<0.001), the CI was significantly higher (P<0.001), the TAPSE, RVFAC and EDV were significantly higher (P<0.001), the TVR was significantly lower (P<0.001), the 6-MWD was significantly longer (P<0.001), the FVC, FEV1 and FEV1/FVC were significantly higher (P<0.001), the levels of pulmonary artery systolic pressure and pulmonary artery diastolic pressure were significantly lower (P<0.001), the levels of NT-proBNP, TNF-α and IL-6 were significantly lower, the PaO2 level was significantly higher (P<0.001), as well as the PaCO2 level was significantly lower (P<0.001). However, there were no significant differences in ESV and LVEF between before BPA and three months after the last BPA (P>0.05). In addition, there were 5 cases of hemoptysis, 1 case of reperfusion pulmonary edema, and no other complications occurred. Conclusion: BPA can improve the exercise tolerance, cardiac and pulmonary functions, and blood gas level of patients with CTEPH, and the incidence of complications is relatively low. However, due to the limitations of the single-arm design, the results of this study need to be further verified through randomized controlled trials.
Keywords: Balloon pulmonary angioplasty, cardiac function, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertensionchronic thrombotic pulmonary hypertension, Hemodynamics, Pulmonary Function
Received: 20 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Cui. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mingzhe Cui
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.