Screening for Pulmonary Hypertension in SSc

In this single-center, retrospective cohort study, SSc patients were included, who were referred by their rheumatologists for a screening for PH at the expert center for PH at the Thoraxklinik Heidelberg gGmbH at Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany. SSc patients were sent with a suspicion of PH due to symptoms and laboratory or lung functional abnormalities from 2010 to 2020. The results from a part of this cohort were published before [10 (link)]. The criteria for SSc classification by the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism were fulfilled by all patients [11 (link)]. Patients were divided into limited (lcSSc) or diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc) according to LeRoy’s criteria [12 (link)]. Patients were not included if they were underaged, not able to provide informed consent, had connective tissue diseases other than SSc, or had no data of % HRC at baseline. The routine assessment of % HRC in our clinical laboratory began in July 2014; therefore, patients assessed before could not be included in the analysis unless % HRC was determined externally.
There was no objection against the study from the ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University Hospital (internal number S-126/2021). The study complied with the current version of the Declaration of Helsinki.