Chest
Original Research: Pulmonary HypertensionIs Methamphetamine Use Associated With Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension?
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
This was a retrospective study conducted at the University of California at San Diego, Thornton Hospital, La Jolla, CA. The study included all patients > 18 years old with PAH or chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) seen over an 18-month period (November 2002 to April 2004) in the pulmonary hypertension clinics. Information on demographics, hemodynamics, pulmonary hypertension etiology, race, and prior stimulant drug use was abstracted from medical records. Any use of
Results
Six hundred fourteen patients with a diagnosis of possible or definite pulmonary hypertension were seen over an 18-month period. One hundred eighty-three patients were excluded from the analysis because inclusion criteria were not met, including 42 patients with left-heart disease, 42 patients with lung disease, 25 patients with other forms of pulmonary hypertension, 39 patients with normal hemodynamics at catheterization, and 35 patients excluded for other reasons; additional details are given
Discussion
The central finding of this study was that methamphetamine exposure appears to be strongly associated with idiopathic PAH. Patients with idiopathic PAH were approximately 10 times more likely to have a history of stimulant use than patients with PAH and known risk factors, and almost 8 times more likely to have a history of stimulant use than patients with CTEPH, after adjustment for age. These ratios are similar to those found in studies of fenfluramine use. For example, the Surveillance of
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Cindy Morgan, MS, and Fernando Torres, MD, for assistance in statistical analysis and manuscript preparation.
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The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.