Does Obesity Affect Mortality Rate Among Patients With PAH?

Obese patients who are hospitalized with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) have lower mortality rates compared with non-obese patients with PAH, according to the results of a recent study.

These findings contribute to other studies that have reported similar trends in mortality rates for various cardiovascular disorders between obese and non-obese patients, referred to as the “obesity paradox.”
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Using the 2003-2001 National Inpatient Samples databases, the researchers identified 18,450 patients aged 18 years or older who were hospitalized with PAH. Of these patients, 14.7% were classified as obese in the databases.

Obese patients with PAH were more likely to be younger, female, and black when compared with non-obese patients hospitalized with PAH.

After adjusting for demographics, hospital characteristics, and baseline comorbidities, in-hospital mortality was lower for obese patients with PAH compared with non-obese patients with PAH.

“From a 9-year nationwide cohort of PAH patients, we observed significantly lower risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality in obese PAH patients compared [with] non-obese PAH patients,” the researchers concluded.

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Agarwal M, Agrawal S, Garg L, Lavie CJ. Relation between obesity and survival in patients hospitalized for pulmonary arterial hypertension (from a Nationwide Inpatient Sample database 2003-2011) [published online May 11, 2017]. Am J Cardiol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2017.04.051.