Chest
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Meta Analysis
Efficacy and safety of PAH-specific therapy in pulmonary arterial hypertension: a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
Previous meta-analyses of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)-specific therapy for PAH pooled PAH-specific combination therapy and monotherapy. This flaw may threaten the authenticity of their findings. ⋯ Our meta-analysis revealed that PAH-specific monotherapy could improve mortality, exercise capacity, functional class, and hemodynamic status compared with placebo or conventional therapy. However, combination therapy could further improve exercise capacity, functional class, and hemodynamic status compared with monotherapy, but it had no proven effect on mortality. Combination therapy had a much higher incidence of withdrawal due to adverse effects than monotherapy.