Latvian PAH and CTEPH patients demonstrate lower one-year survival rates compared to other European registries, highlighting the need for collaborative, pan-European registry efforts to improve research quality in rare conditions.
Patient registries are a valuable tool in the research of rare conditions such as pulmonary hypertension (PH). We report comprehensive hemodynamic and survival data of 174 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), included in the prospective Latvian PH registry over a period of > 9 years. In total, 130 adult PAH patients (75%) and 44 adult CTEPH patients (25%) were enrolled. The median follow-up period was 33 months for PAH and 18 months for CTEPH, P = 0.001. Latvian CTEPH patients had significantly higher plasma levels of B-type natriuretic peptide, higher pulmonary vascular resistance, and lower cardiac index than Latvian PAH patients. Calculated incidence of PAH and CTEPH in Latvia in 2016 was 13.7 and 5.1 cases per million inhabitants, calculated prevalence was 45.7 and 15.7 cases per million inhabitants, respectively. Survival rates at one, three, and five years for PAH patients was 88.0%, 73.3%, and 58.1%, and 83.8%, 59.0%, and 44.2% for CTEPH patients, respectively. We compared our study results with data from European adult PH registries. Latvian PAH patients had the fourth lowest and CTEPH patients the lowest one-year survival rate among European adult PH registries. As most PH registries in Europe are small, yet with equivalent patient inclusion criteria, it would be desirable to combine these registries to produce more reliable and high-quality study results.
Skride et al. (Wed,) studied this question.