Group III Pulmonary Hypertension: relative frequency of different etiologies in a referral pulmonary OPD

Background: The prevalence of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in India remains unknown. The literature is scanty from the country regarding different types of PH. The etiological distribution of Group III PH in a pulmonologist’s practice, therefore, will be worthwhile to note. Method: We included patients with pulmonary hypertension following convenience sampling from those been diagnosed with PH in our pulmonary OPD services on the basis of a novel clinico-radio-echocardiographic criteria. They were then evaluated for the apparent and predominant underlying etiology. Patients with clear and defined diagnosis of COPD, asthma, DPLD, OSA and CTEPH were charted along with those having no obvious etiology but a history of treatment of tuberculosis in the past, along with a group marked as the “others” that consisted of a number of known (sarcoidosis, rheumatic heart disease, etc.) and some incompletely evaluated patients. Results: A total of 356 patients were recruited. The relative frequencies have been accounted to 35.81%, 20.66% and 13.77% for COPD, DPLD and asthma respectively. The patients with a history of TB without any other forthcoming etiology formed 12.67% of the group. The patients with OSA and CTEPH accounted for 2.75% of the group and the “Others” group occupied the rest 14.32%. Conclusion: Group III PH is found not infrequent in pulmonary practice and COPD tops the etiological list.