Association between CHA2DS2-VASc Score and Right Ventricular Dysfunction in Patients with Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Background: Acute right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) is a leading cause of death in the setting of acute pulmonary embolism (PE). Therefore, several studies investigated the predisposing factors of RVD. However, at present, little is known about the clinical predictors of RVD in the patients presented with acute PE.

Objective: To assess the association of CHA2DS2-VASc Score with the PE severity, RVD and the in-hospital mortality in patients presented with acute PE.

Methods: This study was conducted on 50 patients admitted with acute PE at Tanta University Hospitals. We studied the association of different variables including demographic data, common risk factors, clinical presentation, management and the in-hospital mortality with the PE clinical subgroups (massive, sub-massive and non-massive) based on the severity of clinical presentation and also the association of these variables with the thromboembolic risk (high, moderate and low) based on the CHA2DS2-VASc scores. The independent predictors of the RVD were then investigated by the univariate and multivariate regression analyses.

Results: The massive PE presentation was associated with higher CHA2DS2-VASc scores (P value = 0.02). Also, the incidence of RVD was higher among the high risk group of patients (CHA2DS2-VASc scores ≥3) with P value = 0.009. TAPSE, MPI, FAC, and E`/A` ratio were found to be more significant in the high risk group (P value = 0.032, 0.002, 0.007 and 0.001), respectively. The independent predictors of RVD were demonstrated to be tachycardia, lower systolic blood pressure and CHA2DS2-VASc score (P value = 0.022, 0.007, 0.021), respectively. The CHA2DS2-VASc score predicted the presence of RVD with 66.7 % sensitivity and 78.6% specificity as demonstrated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, with area under the curve (AUC) of 0.776 (CI 0.636-0.882, P value < 0.001). This study demonstrated no statistically significant difference between the different risk groups regarding the in-hospital mortality.

Conclusion: Being independent of other factors, the CHA2DS2-VASc score can be used as a new, simple, and reliable tool to predict the development of RVD in patients with acute PE.