A large retrospective cohort study analyzed outpatient visits across five hospitals within the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine) from January 1, 2019, to September 30, 2024. The study included 46,149,734 visits among 2,248,341 patients. Telemedicine surged from 1% of visits pre-pandemic to 17% in April 2020, before stabilising at 4-6% from 2022 onwards. […]
A UK pilot study explored whether physical activity data from wearable devices and a smartphone app (My Heart Counts) could help detect idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) earlier, before formal diagnosis. Analysing up to eight years of real-world activity and heart rate data from 109 participants, including patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, disease controls,
The emPHasis-10 questionnaire is a specialized tool for assessing health-related quality of life in pulmonary arterial hypertension patients. A comprehensive validation process was undertaken by researchers in Thailand including forward-backward translation, expert content validity assessment using Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) index by five specialists, and reliability testing with 20 Thai PAH patients using both internal consistency
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) capture patients’ own perspectives on their health and are crucial for improving care, yet they remain underused in clinical practice due to barriers like time constraints, language availability, and licensing costs. The European Reference Center for Rare Lung Diseases (ERN LUNG) is launching an ambitious initiative to implement a standardized PROM
A new study published recently on CHEST evaluated whether the Pulmonary Hypertension Functional Class Self-Report (PH-FC-SR)—a patient-reported version of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Functional Class—captures functional status in a way that reflects patients’ real experiences. Study Overview Eighty-nine adults with pulmonary hypertension (Groups 1–5) from the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic completed an online
Tacrolimus therapeutic drug monitoring is challenging due to high inter- and intra-patient variability. A prospective randomized controlled trial was conducted by researchers at the University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium, on 293 de novo kidney transplant recipients during the first 14 days post-transplant. A fully automated Model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) application (1) was integrated into the
Key point: The deep learning-based chest X-ray model for pulmonary hypertension detection, CXR-PH-Net, proved particularly sensitive in identifying in early-stage/mild pulmonary hypertension. Researchers in China developed artificial intelligence programs that can analyze chest X-rays to detect pulmonary hypertension by training computer programs using chest X-rays from over 6,700 patients in Beijing hospitals, comparing those with and
Despite strong recommendations to assess quality of life in pulmonary arterial hypertension patients from the World Symposia on Pulmonary Hypertension (WSPH) in 2018 and 2024, and from the 2022 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and European Respiratory Society (ERS) joint pulmonary hypertension guidelines, this evaluation remains rarely implemented in clinical practice. This cross-sectional study of
The key findings from the Pulmonary Hypertension Global Patient Survey (PHGPS) adult cohort of 3,329 patients have been published in the ERJ Open Research 2025, highlighting the achievements, shortcomings & regional disparities of clinical care & research globally. The Pulmonary Hypertension Global Patient Survey represents the most extensive survey of its type in the pulmonary
Researchers used computer modeling to compare immediate versus delayed (2-year) treatment with sotatercept, a new pulmonary arterial hypertension medication, to predict lifetime outcomes. Study Method: Building on the findings of the phase 3 STELLAR trial on sotatercept the authors of the study refer to a population health model which was recently published assessing the long-term
A new study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2025 Conference reveals that women with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) rely heavily on family caregivers but face significant gaps in meeting their support needs. Methodology Researchers conducted a 45-minute web-based quantitative survey across multiple countries, targeting women aged 21-50 with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Patient-reported outcome measures
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is hard to diagnose, especially in places with limited medical resources, but catching it early is crucial for treatment. A group of researchers from China conducted a retrospective cohort study with 4,576 patients, including 2,288 pulmonary hypertension cases, who underwent chest X-rays (CXR) followed by right heart catheterization (RHC) or transthoracic echocardiography
The use of remote healthcare services expanded significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, promoting distant patient care management. Telehealth may be effective in managing patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), due to its use in the management of other chronic diseases. However, evidence for telehealth use in pulmonary arterial hypertension is limited to a few small
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL ) is an important outcome measure in pulmonary arterial hypertension research, but an evaluation of which patient questionnaires work best had not been done up to now. Also, different studies use different questionnaires, making it hard to compare results. A systematic review (PROSPERO ID: CRD42024484021) was conducted following Preferred Reporting
A study published in Pulmonary Circulation on April 16, 2025 investigated whether Fitbit wearable devices can provide meaningful clinical information about activity and sleep patterns in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients. A total of 110 participants completed the 12-week baseline monitoring period. The cohort was median age 52.7 years (IQR: 40.9–60.5), female predominant (84% female),
This article on the use of an artificial intelligence alert system is not new but it was mentioned during the recent European Society of Cardiology CRT – Cardiovascular Round Table – on the them of AI in cardiovascular care, which took place on March 26-27, 2025 (link) The primary clinical hypothesis of this randomised controlled
Pulmonary hypertension often goes undiagnosed in part because of low suspicion and screening tools not being easily accessible. A deep learning study, published on the Journal of the American Heart Association, has developed a novel screening method for pulmonary hypertension using digital stethoscope recordings (phonocardiograms). By analyzing approximately 6,000 PCG recordings with echocardiogram data, researchers
Researchers at Kaunas University of Technology, Finland, have developed an artificial intelligence model that combines speech and brain activity data to diagnose depression with an accuracy of 97.53 percent. This innovative approach, detailed in an article for Brain Sciences dated October 15, 2024, leverages both electroencephalogram signals and voice recordings to assess emotional states more
This systematic review, published on the Respiratory Medicine November-December 2024 issue, focuses on identifying and evaluating quality of life (QoL) measurement instruments specifically designed for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH): EmPHasis-10, CAMPHOR, PAH SYMPACT, and LPHQ. Using the 2018 COSMIN guidelines, the researchers searched multiple medical databases to assess these instruments’ psychometric properties. While
A new multimodal fusion model (MMF-PH) has outperformed transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in accurately diagnosing pulmonary hypertension (PH) and identifying its subtypes, as presented at the CHEST Annual Meeting in Boston from 6-9 October. By integrating data from demographics, chest X-rays, electrocardiogram, and transthoracic echocardiography, this model reduces the need for invasive right heart catheterization. In
