Background: In clinical practice the association between obesity and pulmonary hypertension (PH) is not rare.
Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome in patients with severe PH, especially cases without significant cardiac, pulmonary or vascular causes.
Methods: We retrospectively anaLyzed the records of 91 patients with severe PH in order to establish its causes.
Results: A total of 64% of the patients were women. The women were older than the men, 76.5 years vs 74.0. The BMI of the women was higher than the men, 37.0 vs 30.07. The most common causes of severe PH seen in an internal medicine ward are: severe heart failure (45.1%), chronic lung disease (16.5%) or a combination of both (12.1%). Overall, 11% of our study patients were morbidly obese without significant cardiac, pulmonary or vascular causes of PH. This group was characterized by high incidence of diabetes meLLitus, arterial hypertension, hyperlipidemia, atrial fibrillation and left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction.
Conclusion: Our results point to a possible association between metabolic syndrome and PH.