Assessing Risk of Postsurgical Problems in Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension

[kathleen-sheffer]

As you might have guessed, patients with “poor exercise capacity stayed significantly longer in the hospital (more than seven days).” Those patients were 9.5% more likely to experience a major post-surgical complication than patients who reported greater exercise capacity.

I would like to see evidence that this assessment is different from a correlation between pulmonary pressures and post-surgical complications. When my pressures were especially elevated, my doctors were hesitant to give me anesthesia for procedures. But even when my disease was severe, I could walk several blocks without stopping and walk up two flights of stairs. This was in part due to the anatomy of my heart. If I were self-reporting good exercise capacity, would they have proceeded with anesthesia when it wasn’t actually safe? If in fact exercise capacity is a better predictor of surgical complications, maybe it was safe. I’m not sure, but it’s interesting to see new ways of evaluating patients – there are a lot of parts to the big picture!

[c-todaro]

That’s interesting! Could you explain further about how anatomy of your heart impacts your level of functioning? Thanks.
My level of functioning appears to be better than my pressure would suggest. I’d assumed the years of intense athletic training helped my body handle PH better, but perhaps that’s not the case.

*no spammer or scammer respondents please*

[brittany-foster]

Hey,
I’m glad you were able to get as strong as you possibly could and were able to get all that training in. Are you still able to exercise now? What type of exercises do you do? I’m sure the athletic training you did help to strengthen your heart.

For me personally, I was born with congenital heart disease and the way that it pumps blood to the rest of the body and the anatomy of my vessels leading outside of the heart (they are smaller than average) makes it difficult to circulate the blood where it should be going and it’s harder to supply my body with oxygenated blood. Everyone is different in their heart anatomy. Do you have a co-existing heart defect or are you seen by a cardiologist? This would be a great thing to ask them too! I can only speak from my own experience as someone with a heart condition and anomalies that impact my exercise capacity.