Pulmonary Valve Annulus (PVA) Z-score Calculator

Pulmonary Valve Annulus (PVA) Z-score — explanation and clinical context This calculator implements the regression equations published by Pettersen et al. (J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2008) to compute a z-score for the pulmonary valve annulus relative to body size. Pettersen and colleagues derived nonlinear polynomial regression models on the natural-log transformed echocardiographic measurements against body surface area (BSA), provided coefficients for mean prediction and the mean square error (MSE) on the ln scale, and recommended computing z-scores as the standardized residual on the ln scale: Z = (ln(measured) − ŷ)/√MSE. For the pulmonary valve annulus the original model coefficients (Table 2) are used here to produce a publication-derived predicted value and z-score for increased precision when comparing individual patients to the normative sample.

Clinically, the PVA z-score is commonly used to quantify annular hypoplasia or dilatation (examples: congenital valve disease, Tetralogy of Fallot planning, valve-sparing decisions), but decisions should integrate valve function, right ventricular outflow anatomy, and clinical course.