Pulmonary artery catheter placement in patients with a history of tricuspid ring annuloplasty, with pulmonary stenosis, and with the transvenous pacemaker leads: is it difficult?

Purpose Previous case reports suggested that the presence of obstruction in the passage of the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) may hinder its placement. However, little is known regarding the difficulty in proper placement of the PAC in those patients. This prospective observational study was designed to examine the difficulty in PAC placement in the patients with a possible obstruction in the passage of the PAC, and compare it with that of patients without those complications.