• Yuling Qian, Ruilin Quan, Xiaoxi Chen, Qing Gu, Changming Xiong, Huijun Han, Gangcheng Zhang, Yucheng Chen, Zaixin Yu, Hongyan Tian, Yuhao Liu, Xianyang Zhu, Shengqing Li, Caojin Zhang, and Jianguo He.
• Department of Pulmonary Vascular Disease, National Center for Cardiovascular Disease, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Fuwai Hospital, Beijing, China.
• Chest. 2023 Jun 1; 163 (6): 153115421531-1542.

BackgroundRegistry-based studies of pediatric pulmonary arterial hypertension (PPAH) are scarce in developing countries, including China. The PPAH risk assessment tool needs further evaluation and improvement.Research QuestionWhat are the characteristics and long-term survival of PPAH in China and what is the performance of the PPAH risk model in Chinese patients?Study Design And MethodsPatients with PAH were enrolled in the national prospective multicenter registry from August 2009 through December 2019. Children 3 months to 18 years of age at the time of PAH diagnosis were analyzed.ResultsA total of 247 children with PAH were enrolled. The median patient age was 14.8 years, and 58.3% of patients were female. Most patients had a diagnosis of PAH associated with congenital heart disease (CHD; 61.5%) and idiopathic or heritable PAH (37.7%). The median time from symptom onset to PAH diagnosis was 24 months. The mean pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance index were 70.78 ± 19.80 mm Hg and 21.82 ± 11.18 Wood Units·m2, respectively. Patients with CHD-associated PAH experienced a longer diagnostic delay and demonstrated higher pulmonary artery pressure, but better cardiac performance, than those with idiopathic or heritable PAH. An increased number of patients received targeted therapy at the last follow-up compared with baseline. The 5- and 10-year survival rates of the entire cohort were 74.9% and 55.7%, respectively, with better survival in patients with CHD-associated PAH than in those with idiopathic or heritable PAH. Patients with low risk had better survival than those with high risk according to the simplified noninvasive risk score model with weight, function class, and echocardiographic right ventricular size, both at baseline and follow-up.InterpretationPatients with PPAH in China showed severely compromised hemodynamics with marked diagnostic delay. The long-term survival of PPAH is poor despite the increased usefulness of targeted drugs. The simplified noninvasive risk model demonstrated good performance for predicting survival in Chinese children with PAH.Trial RegistryClinicalTrials.gov; No.: NCT01417338; URL: www.Clinicaltrialsgov.Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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