Pulmonary hypertension in adults with congenital heart disease. Clinical phenotypes and outcomes in the advanced pulmonary vasodilator era.

Background: Mortality of pulmonary hypertension associated with congenital heart disease (PAH-CHD) in adults remains high.
Objectives: To identify predictors of death and to assess the impact of treatment on outcome.
Methods: Retrospective, multicenter cohort study of 103 adults with PAH-CHD followed-up for 8.6 ± 4.6 years. Patients were grouped according to underlying shunt type into pre-tricuspid, post-tricuspid and complex. Survival rates were analyzed and predictors of death were investigated with Cox regression models.
Results: In the post-tricuspid and complex groups (38 and 37 patients, respectively), the most common clinical PAH-CHD subgroup was Eisenmenger syndrome (76.3% and 59.5%, respectively) whereas, in the pre-tricuspid group (28 patients), 46.5% of patients had small or corrected defects. Overall, 88 patients received vasodilators; 39% required combination-therapy. Overall survival at 10 years was 65%. Mortality was highest in the pre-tricuspid group, FC-III-IV and amongst patients receiving monotherapy (p < 0.050). On multivariate analysis, predictors of poor outcome were pericardial effusion (HR: 4,520 [1,470-13,890]; p = 0,008), oxygen saturation(HR: 0.940 [0,900 - 0,990]; p = 0,018) and genetic syndromes(HR: 3,280 [1,098-9,780]; p = 0,033).
Conclusions: Patients in advanced stages at initiation of treatment were at high risk of death and strong consideration should be given for more aggressive therapy.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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