Echocardiography is helpful to diagnose pulmonary hypertension in patients with long standing chronic bronchitis.

Patients with chronic bronchitis may develop pulmonary hypertension due to long standing disease and hypoxemia. The hypoxemia causes vascular remodeling eventually leading to right sided heart failure or cor pulmonale. Although, the gold standard for diagnosis of cor pulmonale is right heart catheterization, echocardiography is the first step to evaluate for pulmonary hypertension. If the echocardiography findings are normal, pulmonary hypertension may be ruled out.

• Chronic bronchitis may lead to left ventricular hypertrophy^[1]
• LV diastolic dysfunction is another consequence of COPD^[2][3]
• Chronic bronchitis may lead to heart failure and results in a higher mortality for this group.^[4]