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Original articles
Pulmonary hypertension
Pulmonary hypertension: prevalence and mortality in the Armadale echocardiography cohort
  1. Geoff Strange1,2,
  2. David Playford3,4,5,
  3. Simon Stewart6,
  4. Jenny A Deague3,4,
  5. Helen Nelson5,
  6. Aaron Kent3,
  7. Eli Gabbay2,3,4,7
  1. 1Monash University, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2Lung Institute of Western Australia, Western Australia, Australia
  3. 3Faculty of Medicine, University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, Western Australia
  4. 4Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Australia, Western Australia, Australia
  5. 5Armadale Health Service, Albany Hwy, Armadale, Western Australia
  6. 6The Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia
  7. 7Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Professor David Playford, Suite 10, Galliers Specialist Centre, 3056 Albany Hwy, Armadale 6112, Western Australia, Australia; dplayford{at}heartswest.com.au

Abstract

Background Pulmonary hypertension (PHT) lacks community prevalence and outcome data.

Objective To characterise minimum ‘indicative’ prevalences and mortality data for all forms of PHT in a selected population with an elevated estimated pulmonary artery systolic pressure (ePASP) on echocardiography.

Design Observational cohort study.

Setting Residents of Armadale and the surrounding region in Western Australia (population 165 450) referred to our unit for transthoracic echocardiography between January 2003 and December 2009.

Results Overall, 10 314 individuals (6.2% of the surrounding population) had 15 633 echo studies performed. Of these, 3320 patients (32%) had insufficient TR to ePASP and 936 individuals (9.1%, 95% CI 8.6% to 9.7%) had PHT, defined as, ePASP>40 mm Hg. The minimum ‘indicative’ prevalence for all forms of PHT is 326 cases/100 000 inhabitants of the local population, with left heart disease-associated PHT being the commonest cause (250 cases/100 000). 15 cases of pulmonary arterial hypertension/100 000 inhabitants were identified and an additional 144 individuals (15%) with no identified cause for their PHT. The mean time to death for those with ePASP >40 mm Hg, calculated from the first recorded ePASP, was 4.1 years (95% CI 3.9 to 4.3). PHT increased mortality whatever the underlying cause, but patients with PHT from left heart disease had the worst prognosis and those with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension receiving disease-specific treatment the best prognosis. Risk of death increased with PHT severity: severe pulmonary hypertension shortened the lifespan by an average of 1.1 years compared with mild pulmonary hypertension.

Conclusions In this cohort, PHT was common and deadly. Left heart disease was the most common cause and had the worst prognosis and treated pulmonary arterial hypertension had the best prognosis.

  • Pulmonary hypertension
  • echocardiography
  • prevalence
  • cardiopulmonary haemodynamics
  • pulmonary arterial hypertension
  • PAH
  • lung
  • pulmonary vascular disease
  • imaging and diagnostics
  • echocardiography
  • heart failure
  • arrhythmias
  • atrial fibrillation
  • st-T alterations
  • chronic heart failure
  • public health
  • epidemiology

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2012-301992

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    Footnotes

    • Funding DP received an unrestricted research grant from Actelion Pharmaceuticals. No company was involved in the collection, analysis or reporting of these data. All authors contributed to the development, design and review of this manuscript.

    • Competing interests GS receives honoraria from the Pulmonary Hypertension Society of Australia and New Zealand (PHSANZ). The PHSANZ receives grant funding from Actelion, Bayer, GSK, Lilly, Novartis and Pfizer Australia. DP has received honoraria for speaking from Actelion and Pfizer Australia. SS, JD, HN, AK have no conflict of interest to declare. EG has received research funds from Actelion, Bayer, GSK and Pfizer Australia. EG has received honoraria for speaking from Actelion, Bayer, GSK and Pfizer. EG in currently a member of the Advisory Boards for Actelion, Eli Lilly, GSK and Pfizer Australia.

    • Ethics approval Ethics approval was provided by University of Notre Dame ethics comittee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.