Sarah Madigan

Completing my PhD on: Cardiopulmonary exercise testing for screening of pulmonary hypertension in a clinical population of Scleroderma patients.
This primary aim of this study is to assess which gas exchange parameters obtained during a cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) are able to be used as a non-invasive screening tool for the early detection of pulmonary hypertension (PHT) in a clinical cohort of Scleroderma (SSc) patients.
Secondary aims :
Validate if CPET is able to rule out the presence of PHT, thus reducing the number of unnecessary right heart catheterisation (RHC) procedures for these patients.
With long term monitoring of SSc patients, assess if CPET is able to detect early vascular changes with exercise that precede the onset of resting PHT. Providing evidence of the presence of exercise induced PHT.