The changing picture of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension in the United States: how REVEAL differs from historic and non-US Contemporary Registries.

Background: REVEAL (The Registry to Evaluate Early and Long-term Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Disease Management) provides current demographics of patients with group 1 pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in the United States.

Methods: A total of 2,967 patients with PAH diagnosed based on right-sided heart catheterization were enrolled in REVEAL between March 2006 and September 2007. Demographics from the REVEAL patient cohort and REVEAL subpopulations (matched by inclusion criteria to other registries) were compared with historic US registry data and other contemporary US and non-US national PAH registries by inclusion criteria, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) PAH registry and the French PAH registry.

Results: REVEAL patients matched to NIH registry patients were older at diagnosis (mean ± SE, 44.9 ± 0.6 years vs 36.4 ± 1.1 years; difference, 8.5 ± 1.4; P < .001) and more likely to be women (78.7 ± 1.2% vs 63.1 ± 3.5%; P < .001). REVEAL patients matched to French registry patients had similar age and severity at diagnosis, but REVEAL patients were more likely to be women (79.8 ± 0.8% vs 65.3 ± 1.8%; P < .001) and obese (BMI, ≥ 30 kg/m(2), 32.5 ± 1.0% vs 14.8 ± 1.4%; P < .001), whereas French patients were more likely to have HIV-associated PAH (6.2% vs 2.3%). The female preponderance is similar to that in other US-based contemporary registries.

Conclusions: At diagnosis, REVEAL patients were older than NIH registry patients and similar in age to patients enrolled in contemporary registries. Compared with NIH and contemporary European and UK registries, there was a striking preponderance of women, and REVEAL patients were more likely to be obese. These observations and the difference in HIV-associated PAH between REVEAL and other non-US contemporary registries warrant further investigation.

Trial Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov; No.: NCT00370214; URL: clinicaltrials.gov.