Publications by authors named "Hilary M DuBrock"

Background: Sex-based differences are important in the development and progression of pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, it is not established whether these differences are generalizable to all forms of pulmonary hypertension (PH).

Research Question: What are the sex-based differences in right ventricle (RV) function and transplant-free survival in patients with PH from the Redefining Pulmonary Hypertension Through Pulmonary Vascular Disease Phenomics (PVDOMICS) cohort?

Study Design And Methods: Patients with PH enrolled in the PVDOMICS cohort study underwent right heart catheterization, cardiac MRI, and echocardiography.

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Objective: To determine the prevalence of portopulmonary hypertension in patients referred for liver transplant evaluation.

Methods: Medical records were reviewed for 986 consecutive patients referred for liver transplant evaluation who were screened for pulmonary hypertension with echocardiography from February 1, 2021, to January 31, 2022, across 3 liver transplant centers.

Results: Of 934 patients eligible for analysis, mean (SD) age was 57 (11) years, 558 (59.

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Background: Early diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH) is critical for effective treatment and management. We aimed to develop and externally validate an artificial intelligence algorithm that could serve as a PH screening tool, based on analysis of a standard 12-lead ECG.

Methods: The PH Early Detection Algorithm (PH-EDA) is a convolutional neural network developed using retrospective ECG voltage-time data, with patients classified as "PH-likely" or "PH-unlikely" (controls) based on right heart catheterisation or echocardiography.

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Background: Inhaled treprostinil (iTre) is the only treatment approved for pulmonary hypertension due to interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD) to improve exercise capacity. This post hoc analysis evaluated clinical worsening and PH-ILD exacerbations from the 16-week INCREASE study and change in 6-minute walking distance (6MWD) in the INCREASE open-label extension (OLE) in patients with less severe haemodynamics.

Methods: Patients were stratified by baseline pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) of <4 Wood units (WU) versus ≥4 WU and <5 WU versus ≥5 WU.

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Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is frequently impaired in pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, little is known about HRQOL in other forms of pulmonary hypertension (PH).

Research Question: Does HRQOL vary across groups of the World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension (WSPH) classification system?

Study Design And Methods: This cross-sectional study included patients with PH from the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Phenomics (PVDOMICS) cohort study.

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Pulmonary hypertension (PH) associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) (PH-CKD) affects approximately 20%-40% of CKD patients and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. PH and CKD are both pathophysiologically associated with nitric oxide (NO) deficiency. The NO pathway, an important therapeutic domain in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), is an intriguing but unexplored target in PH-CKD.

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Chronic lung disease (CLD) is the second leading cause of pulmonary hypertension (PH) and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Although PH associated with CLD (PH-CLD) leads to impaired health-related quality of life (HRQOL), there are no validated tools to assess HRQOL in PH-CLD. The Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension-Symptoms and Impact Questionnaire (PAH-SYMPACT) is an HRQOL instrument aimed at assessing the symptoms and impact of PH on overall function and well-being.

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Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a supervised exercise program for patients with chronic lung disease. Among patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH), PR has been shown to improve both quality of life and exercise capacity. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of PR participation among PH patients, patient perspectives regarding PR, and to identify potential barriers to PR participation.

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Background: The aim of this study was to assess health care resource utilization (HRU) and costs associated with delayed pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) diagnosis in the United States.

Methods: Eligible adults with newly diagnosed PAH from Optum's de-identified Clinformatics Data Mart Database (2016-2021) were assigned to mutually exclusive cohorts based on time between first PAH-related symptom and first PAH diagnosis (i.e.

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Patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) who undergo endotracheal intubation have an increased risk of adverse outcomes, but little is known regarding prognostic factors and there is limited evidence to guide management. We sought to define characteristics, prognostic factors, and outcomes of critically ill patients with PH who underwent intubation. We performed a single-center retrospective cohort study of critically ill patients with group 1, 3 or 4 PH who underwent intubation.

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The pulmonary vasculature plays a pivotal role in the nonpulsatile systemic venous return post-Fontan palliation. Elevated pulmonary vascular resistance index (PVRi) carries a worse prognosis post-Fontan, but the benefits of pulmonary vasodilators remain controversial. Moreover, the potential for worsening ventricular filling pressures with pulmonary vasodilation has been highlighted.

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Hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) and a hyperdynamic circulation are common complications of advanced liver disease, but the relationship between HPS and cardiac index (CI) is poorly understood. We sought to compare CI in patients with and without HPS and to assess the relationship between CI and symptoms, quality of life, gas exchange, and exercise capacity among liver transplantation (LT) candidates. We performed a cross-sectional analysis within the Pulmonary Vascular Complications of Liver Disease 2 study, a multicenter prospective cohort study of patients being evaluated for LT.

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Article Synopsis
  • Portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) is a serious condition affecting 5-6% of advanced liver disease patients and is linked to worse survival outcomes compared to idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
  • Recent research highlights the importance of diagnosing and managing POPH, especially in liver transplantation (LT) candidates, through echocardiography screening to identify this condition early.
  • Treatment options for POPH resemble those for idiopathic PAH and can lead to improved pulmonary function and better survival rates after LT in carefully chosen patients.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzed trends in portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) exception criteria for liver transplants from 2006 to 2019, revealing a total of 504 exceptions granted for patients.
  • There has been a noted increase in both the severity of liver disease and the age of patients over the years, alongside significant improvement in treatments that positively impacted hemodynamic measures.
  • Despite improvements in treatment and patient health metrics, there have been no significant changes in mortality rates on the transplant waitlist or after liver transplants during the study period.
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We present a novel description of Bezold-Jarisch Reflex (BJR) during cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in three young female patients with Group 1 pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). These three cases presented within 26 months, representing only 0.8% of 11,387 tests on patients with PAH undergoing CPET during this time frame.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a serious condition that affects patients' overall quality of life, and the PAH-SYMPACT questionnaire helps measure its symptoms and effects.
  • A study involving 110 PAH patients revealed that the questionnaire is practical to use in clinical settings and showed strong relationships between specific questionnaire scores and key health outcomes, like hospitalizations and mortality.
  • The findings suggest that using PAH-SYMPACT can provide additional valuable insights into patient health and quality of life that traditional disease severity measures may miss.
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Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) complicates the course of many patients with fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD). Inhaled treprostinil (iTre) has been shown to improve functional ability and to delay clinical worsening in patients with PH resulting from ILD.

Research Question: Do higher dosages of iTre have greater benefits in preventing clinical worsening and achieving clinical improvement?

Study Design And Methods: Post hoc analysis of the INCREASE study, a 16-week double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of iTre in patients with PH resulting from ILD.

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It is well established that pulmonary hypertension (PH) places a substantial burden on patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). As more effective treatments have been developed for this condition, evaluating treatment benefit based on experiences reported by patients regarding their well-being and physical, social, and emotional functioning has increased. A review of the published literature and clinical trials in PH was conducted to identify and evaluate patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that assess PH-specific HRQoL for use in clinical studies.

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Background: PVDOMICS (Pulmonary Vascular Disease Phenomics) is a precision medicine initiative to characterize pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) using deep phenotyping. PVDOMICS tests the hypothesis that integration of clinical metrics with omic measures will enhance understanding of PVD and facilitate an updated PVD classification.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe clinical characteristics and transplant-free survival in the PVDOMICS cohort.

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Aims: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) and pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) are common and associated with adverse outcomes in left heart disease (LHD). This study sought to characterize the pathophysiology of PVD across the spectrum of PH in LHD.

Methods And Results: Patients with PH-LHD [mean pulmonary artery (PA) pressure >20 mmHg and PA wedge pressure (PAWP) ≥15 mmHg] and controls free of PH or LHD underwent invasive haemodynamic exercise testing with simultaneous echocardiography, expired air and blood gas analysis, and lung ultrasound in a prospective study.

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Patients with portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) have an increased cardiovascular and overall mortality risk when undergoing liver transplantation (LT). However, such risk is not captured in their Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) laboratory score. POPH MELD exception criteria were established in 2006 with the aim of prioritizing these patients for LT prior to pulmonary hypertension (PH) progression and eventual right heart failure.

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Aims: In heart failure (HF), pulmonary venous hypertension (PVH) produces pulmonary hypertension (PH) with remodeling of pulmonary veins (PV) and arteries (PA). In a porcine PVH model, we performed proteomic-based bioinformatics to investigate unique pathophysiologic mechanisms mediating PA and PV remodeling.

Methods And Results: Large PV were banded (PVH, n = 10) or not (Sham, n = 9) in piglets.

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