Awareness and management of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension among respiratory physicians revealed by a questionnaire analysis

Objective: To evaluate the awareness and management status of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) among respiratory physicians and therefore to provide for establishing clinical guidelines on CTEPH. Methods: A questionnaire was designed to address the common questions in CTEPH management. The responses were collected online and the data were analyzed. Totally, 1 038 valid questionnaires were collected. Results: 74.1% of the responders were from tertiary hospitals and 88.5% were attending physicians. Only a few hospitals could carry out ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy (31.3%) and right heart catheterization (38.5%). For the treatment of CTEPH, pulmonary endarterectomy and balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) were only performed in 8.0% and 10.4% of the hospitals respectively, and mostly in tertiary hospitals, P<0.01. 49.6% of the physicians were familiar with the interpretation of CTPA, while only 19.9% of V/Q scan. 88.5% of the physicians choose CTPA as the screening tool for CTEPH, but only 3.9% were consistent with the guidelines. 79% of the physicians agreed with lifelong anticoagulation for CTEPH, and 70.8% supported operability should be evaluated in all CTEPH patients. Conclusions: This questionnaire study showed that there was a gap between the guidelines and the real world practice in CTEPH management. Efforts should be made to improve the awareness and standardization of the management of CTEPH.