Decreased postpartum exercise capacity after a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia: Implications for CVD risk prediction.

BACKGROUND: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are associated with increased long-term risk for cardiometabolic risk factors (chronic hypertension [HTN], obesity, diabetes) and heart failure. Exercise capacity is a known predictor of heart failure in patients with normal resting cardiac filling pressures. In this prospective observational cohort study, we sought to identify predictors of reduced postpartum exercise capacity in participants with normotensive vs preeclamptic pregnancies. METHODS: Preeclampsia (PreE) and normotensive subjects were enrolled to undergo bedside echocardiography within 48 hours of delivery, and rest/exercise echocardiography 12 weeks postpartum. RESULTS: Recruited subjects (n = 68) were grouped according to their blood pressure as: a) normotensive pregnancy n = 15; b) PreE with normotensive postpartum (PreE-Resolved, n = 36); c) PreE with persistent postpartum HTN (PreE-HTN, n = 17). At enrollment, a significantly higher percentage of subjects in the PreE-HTN group were Black. Compared to normotensive and PreE-Resolved subjects, those with PreE-HTN demonstrated higher resting systolic blood pressure (SBP, 112 [normotensive] vs 112 [PreE-Resolved] vs 134 [PreE-HTN], P < .001) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP, 70.0 vs 72.5 vs 85.0, P < .001), and significantly less postpartum weight loss (9.6% vs 13.6% vs 3.8%, P < .001). Following Bruce protocol stress testing, PreE-HTN subjects demonstrated achieved significantly lower exercise duration (10.4 vs 10.2 vs 7.9 minutes, P = .001). Subjects with PreE-HTN also demonstrated evidence of exercise-induced diastolic dysfunction as assessed by peak exercise lateral e' (18.0 vs 18.0 vs 13.5, P = .045) and peak exercise tricuspid regurgitation velocity (TR Vm, 2.4 vs 3.0 vs 3.1, P = 0.045). Exercise duration was negatively associated with gravidity (R = -0.27, P = .029) and postpartum LV mass index (R = -0.45, P < .001), resting average E/e' (R = -0.51, P < .001), BMI (R = -0.6, P < .001) and resting SBP (R = -0.51, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Postpartum exercise stress testing capacity is related to readily available clinical markers including pregnancy factors, echocardiographic parameters and unresolved cardiometabolic risk factors.

Lung Ultrasound Protocol and Quality Control of Image Interpretation Using an Adjudication Panel in the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) Trial.

OBJECTIVE: Lung ultrasound (LUS) is an alternative to chest radiography to confirm a diagnosis of pneumonia. For research and disease surveillance, methods to use LUS to diagnose pneumonia are needed. METHODS: In the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) trial, LUS was used to confirm a clinical diagnosis of severe pneumonia in infants. We developed a standardized definition of pneumonia, protocols for recruitment and training of sonographers, along with LUS image acquisition and interpretation. We use a blinded panel approach to interpretation with LUS cine-loops randomized to non-scanning sonographers with expert review. DISCUSSION: We obtained 357 lung ultrasound scans: 159, 8 and 190 scans were collected in Guatemala, Peru and Rwanda, respectively. The diagnosis of primary endpoint pneumonia (PEP) required an expert tie breaker in 181 scans (39%). PEP was diagnosed in 141 scans (40%), not diagnosed in 213 (60%), with 3 scans (<1%) deemed uninterpretable. Agreement among the two blinded sonographers and the expert reader in Guatemala, Peru and Rwanda was 65%, 62% and 67%, with a prevalence-and-bias-corrected kappa of 0.30, 0.24 and 0.33, respectively. CONCLUSION: Use of standardized imaging protocols, training and an adjudication panel resulted in high confidence for the diagnosis of pneumonia using LUS.