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African-American women with pulmonary arterial hypertension have a greater risk of death from the rare lung disorder than any other group in the United States, a study published Tuesday showed.
The findings of the study raised questions about the classic profile of the disorder's victim, middle-aged, Caucasian women, the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) said in a statement.
The cause of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH), which affects the blood vessels within the lungs and leads to an increase in pressure, is not yet known, study author Kala Davis of Stanford University School of Medicine said.
"Women overall have higher mortality rates for IPAH, but the substantial difference shown in mortality rates between African-American women and Caucasian women, of all ages, was surprising," Davis said in the statement.
Davis and her colleagues analyzed US government statistics from the years 1994 to 1998 for deaths whose underlying cause was IPAH.
They discovered that the mortality rate of African-American women was higher than that of white women, despite more white women reporting they had the disease.
"Further analysis of IPAH mortality data from 1999 to 2002 confirms that this trend is continuing," Davis said.
The reasons for the racial disparity remained unclear, but suggested potential causes such as differences in access to health care insurance, and race-specific genetic factors, said the researchers, who presented their study at CHEST 2006 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
"Race, gender, and age have become defining factors in assessing the risk of death in IPAH," Davis concluded.
"Clinicians must therefore be cognizant of this emerging demographic profile, which contrasts with the classic description of the condition as being a disease of middle aged, Caucasian women."
In the United States, an estimated 500 to 1,000 new IPAH cases are diagnosed each year.
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AFP 241923 GMT 10 06
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