Prevalence and significance of pulmonary hypertension among hospitalized patients with left heart disease

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary hypertension associated with left heart disease (PH-LHD) prevalence ranges significantly across studies with limited real-world evidence. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence and prognostic influence of PH-LHD in a nationwide sample. METHODS: Using the 2018 US Nationwide Inpatient Sample we calculated the prevalence of PH across heart failure (HF), cardiomyopathies, aortic, and mitral valve disease. We used logistic regression to assess the impact of PH on LHD and to find significant contributors to in-hospital mortality in the PH-LHD population. RESULTS: Among 6,270,625 hospitalizations with LHD, 801,535 (12.8 %) had a secondary PH diagnosis. PH-LHD prevalence was 17.2 % in HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), 11.8 % in HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), 16.8 % in dilated cardiomyopathy, 12.6 % in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, 18.7 % in mitral regurgitation, 28.5 % in mitral stenosis, 13.5 % in aortic stenosis, and 13.9 % in aortic regurgitation. PH was associated with increased in-hospital mortality in HFpEF (OR 1.23; 95%CI 1.17-1.28), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (1.42; 1.06-1.89), mitral regurgitation (1.17; 1.07-1.28), and aortic stenosis (1.14; 1.04-1.26), but not in HFrEF (1.04; 0.99-1.10), or dilated cardiomyopathy (1.13; 0.99-1.29). Among PH-LHD, in-hospital mortality was associated with age, atrial fibrillation/flutter, cancer, and acute cardiac (acute right HF, myocardial infarction, ventricular arrhythmia), or extra-cardiac (stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, acute renal failure, venous thromboembolism) diagnoses. CONCLUSION: In a nationwide inpatient analysis the prevalence of PH-LHD was lower than previously reported indicating reduced recognition of this disease in real world clinical practice. The diagnosis of PH-LHD was associated with worse fatality rates across all forms of LHD, except for HFrEF.