TY - JOUR T1 - Pregnancy outcomes in pulmonary arterial hypertension in the modern management era JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/09031936.00141211 SP - erj01412-2011 AU - X. Jaïs AU - K.M. Olsson AU - J.A. Barbera AU - I. Blanco AU - A. Torbicki AU - A. Peacock AU - C.D. Vizza AU - P. Macdonald AU - M. Humbert AU - M.M. Hoeper Y1 - 2012/01/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2012/01/24/09031936.00141211.abstract N2 - Previous studies have reported mortality rates of up to 56% associated with pregnancy in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) but the management of this disease has changed considerably in recent years.We conducted a multinational, prospective registry to examine the contemporary outcome of pregnancies in patients with PAH.During a 3-year period, the 13 participating centres reported 26 pregnancies. Three females (12%) died and one (4%) developed right heart failure requiring urgent heart-lung transplantation. There were 8 abortions; 2 spontaneous and 6 induced. Sixteen pregnancies (62%) were successful, i.e. the females delivered healthy babies without complications. These females had well controlled PAH (pulmonary vascular resistance, PVR, 500±352 dyn.s.cm−5); eight of them were long-term responders to calcium channel blockers. In contrast, the females who died or required transplantation had poorly controlled PAH (PVR, 1,667±209 dyn.s.cm−5).Pregnancy remains associated with a substantial mortality rate in PAH. However, our results indicate that the outcome of pregnancies in PAH has improved, at least when PAH is well controlled and particularly in long-term responders to calcium channel blockers. These data must be confirmed by larger series before the general recommendation to avoid pregnancy in all patients with PAH is reconsidered. ER -