Prevalance of pulmonary hypertension in chronic myeloproliferative diseases

To evaluate the incidence of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in essential thrombocythemia (ET) and polycythemia Vera (PV), which are chronic myeloproliferative disorders, 70 patients (55PV+15ET), who have no co-morbidity causing PH, were prospectivelly evaluated. All patients had echocardiography done by the same cardiologist, spirometry and DLCO. Two parameters were used for PH: mean pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) calculated by Mahan formula>25 mmHg and right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP)>35 mmHg. For the first parameter, 3 (4,3%) patients (1ET, 2PV) and for the second parameter, 4 (5.7%) patients (2ET, 2PV) had PH. Patients9 characteristics are reported in the table. Conclusion: When compared with the previous few studies done by small populations, PH incidence in our study was found very low. This result may be related to effective treatment (cytoreductive treatment) of myeloproliferative diseases in the majority of the patients.