Zürich Pulmonary Hypertension Outcome Assessment Cohort (ZHPHCohort)

PH is a serious disease with a dismal prognosis and impaired quality of life when left untreated. Advances in medical therapy have improved survival according to recent registries, but are associated with high healthcare costs. Most treatment trials and clinical follow-up assessments rely on the 6 minute walk distance as main outcome parameter although submaximal exercise performance reflects only one disease aspect.

Reliable patient centered and prognostically relevant outcome measures are highly warranted in the field of PH. With this prospective cohort study the investigator intend to gain important information on the course of the disease and knowledge on the value of different new and already established outcome parameters. New outcomes to be assessed will be home based activity monitoring, novel physiological measures, namely cerebral and muscle tissue oxygenation at rest and during exercise testing, stair ascent on mechanograph, sit to stand test and several serum markers and micro-RNA. All these assessments will be compared with hard endpoints events (death, lung-transplantation, hospitalization for PH), and with traditional outcome measures such as NYHA functional class, 6 minute walk distance, generic quality of life, cardiopulmonary exercise tests, sleep studies, health preference (utility) and cognitive function.