A low resting heart rate at diagnosis predicts favourable long-term outcome in pulmonary arterial and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. A prospective observational study

Table 2 Difference in baseline characteristics by median resting heart rate

	< 82 bpm Numbers (%) Mean ± SD	> 82 bpm Numbers (%) Mean ± SD	p
Total number of patients	101	105	0.780
Female/male	60/41 (59/41)	70/35 (67/33)	0.64/0.5
Age (years)	57 ±17	54 ±16	0.158
Idiopathic	24 (24)	31 (30)	0.345
Connective tissue disease	15 (15)	17 (16)	0.724
Other PAH	29 (29)	32 (31)	0.701
Chronic thromboembolic PH not eligible for surgery	33 (33)	25 (24)	0.294
WHO functional class I/II/III/IV	0/20/54/25 (20/54/25)	1/17/50/37 (16/48/35)	0.59/0.71/0.30
BMI (kg/m2)	25 ±5	25 ±6	0.545
Resting Heart Rate (bpm)	71 ±7	93 ±9	<0.001**
Mean arterial pressure (mmHg)^†	88 ±14	91 ±14	0.116
Mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mmHg) ^†	42 ±16	48 ±19	0.04*
Pulmonary vascular resistance (dynsecm-5) ^†	661 ±396	884 ±499	0.01*
Cardiac index (l/min/m2) ^†	2.5 ±0.8	2.2 ±0.8	0.18
Right atrial pressure (mmHg) ^†	7 ±5	11 ±7	<0.001**
NT-pro-BNP (ng/l, < 130)	1593 ±2079	2043 ±2429	0.283
6 minute walking distance (m)	409 ±141	366 ±131	0.11
Mean follow up (days)	1530	1179	0.15
Percentage survivors at year 1, 3, 5, 7, 9	93/78/68/64/62	77/57/49/48/47	0.40/0.18/0.19/0.23/0.28
Median survival (years)	6.6	3.7	<0.001**

* Significant,** highly significant ^† measured by right heart catheter;
Data is given as number (%) or mean ± SD. NYHA: New York Heart Association, WHO: World health organization, BMI: Body mass index, NT-pro-BNP: NT-pro brain natriuretic peptide.

ISSN: 1465-993X