The behavior of the right side of the heart during stress has been underemphasized and sparsely investigated by cardiologists and pneumologists. Reasons vary, but the right ventricle has traditionally been considered a passive conduit between the venous system and the lungs largely because of early animal experiments showing no increase of central venous pressure after the free wall of the right ventricle had been destroyed. In addition, ultrasound systems are generally optimized for imaging of the left ventricle. Recent pathophysiological, clinical, and prognostic data have defined an important role of the right ventricle in many conditions, including ischemic heart disease and heart failure. Given that the right ventricle and the left ventricle share a common septum, have an overlap** blood supply, and are bound together by the pericardium, changes induced by myocardial ischemia and/or heart failure are reflected in pulmonary hemodynamics and right ventricular function. Modern Doppler echocardiography allows a systematic evaluation of five key aspects of cardiopulmonary pathophysiology during stress: segmental right ventricular function; global right ventricular longitudinal function; coronary flow reserve in the posterior descending of the right coronary artery; indices of pulmonary hemodynamics, namely, pulmonary artery systolic pressure, pulmonary velocity time integrals, and pulmonary vascular resistances; and extravascular lung water in the lung, mirroring the distress of the alveolar–capillary membrane.
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Picano, E., Grünig, E., Román, A.S., Damon, K., Schiller, N.B. (2009). Dynamic and Pharmacologic Right Heart Stress Echocardiography: Right Ventricular Function, Right Coronary Artery Flow, Pulmonary Pressure, and Alveolar–Capillary Membrane Testing in the Echocardiography Laboratory. In: Picano, E. (eds) Stress Echocardiography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76466-3_8
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