Increased pulmonary artery diameter is associated with reduced FEV1 in former World Trade Center workers.
Occupational exposures at the WTC site after September 11, 2001 have been associated with several presumably inflammatory lower airway diseases. Pulmonary arterial enlargement, as suggested by an increased ratio of the diameter of the pulmonary artery to the diameter of the aorta (PAAr) has been reported as a computed tomographic (CT) scan marker of adverse respiratory health outcomes, including WTC-related disease. In this study, we sought to utilize a novel quantitative CT (QCT) measurement of PAAr to test the hypothesis that an increased ratio is associated with FEV1 below each subject’s statistically determined lower limit of normal (FEV1 < LLN).