The findings of a multi-center randomized controlled trial investigating the long-term efficiency of rehabilitation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension was published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society on July 20, 2026. The study followed 47 patients with stable pulmonary arterial hypertension across 9 French centers, looking at the long-term impact of a 3-month supervised rehabilitation program.
At the twelve-month mark, patients in the rehabilitation group averaged 16.8 minutes of endurance, compared with 8.0 minutes in the control group — a benefit that remained visible a full nine months after the supervised sessions had ended. No serious adverse events were linked to the program, and there was also a promising, though still exploratory, signal toward a reduced risk of clinical worsening, which will need to be confirmed in further research.
A key strength of FONCE-HTAP is its design: using a Zelen approach helped limit performance bias, a common challenge in trials testing non-drug interventions. FONCE-HTAP was funded through PHRC-i by the French Ministry of Health (via DGOS), with additional support from private partners.
Read more at this link on the Annals of the American Thoracic Society
Citation
Laurent Bertoletti, Ségolène Turquier, Hélène Bouvaist, Cécile Tromeur, Irina Enache, Marie-France Seronde, Claire Dauphin, Remi Diesler, Marianne Noirclerc, Francis Couturaud, Souad Bezzeghoud, Carine Assante, Céline Chapelle, Clément Boissin, David Montani, Vincent Cottin, Christophe Pison, Frédéric Costes, David Hupin, For the FONCE-HTAP investigators, Long-term efficacy and safety of rehabilitation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension: the FONCE-HTAP randomized controlled trial, Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2026; aaoag193, https://doi.org/10.1093/annalsats/aaoag193