CONGRESS ABSTRACT

Introduction Air pollution is a complex mixture of gases and other molecules that permeate the atmosphere, making exposure largely unavoidable in most indoor and outdoor environments. External, or environmental, pollution can be produced by dumping from numerous sources, including motor vehicles, industrial processes, agricultural dust, fires, etc. All sources of PM have the potential to impact human health, but while domestic pollution impacts people on a personal level, environmental pollution has the potential to affect global health. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a condition characterized by an increase in mean pulmonary pressure (mPAP) > 20 mm/Hg with pulmonary vascular resistance > 2 MW. Interestingly, there is growing interest in understanding the impact of air pollution on cardiovascular and pulmonary health, including its potential association with pulmonary hypertension. Method This study aimed to investigate whether exposures to air pollutant emissions caused harmful health effects in the Parma metropolitan area and in the nearby cohorts of Langhirano and Sorbolo, south and north of the city respectively. In particular, we wanted to evaluate whether the exposure rate to particulate matter had a greater effect on the development of pulmonary hypertension; environmental pollution data were provided by ARPAE Emilia Romagna and refer to the average values of the same period in the years 2015, 2017, 2020, 2023. The Local Ethics Committee approved this study on 07/21/2025 n° protocol 0000481 and participants provided written informed consent. This study will be a non-interventional, retrospective and monocenter. After excluding patients with postcapillary pulmonary hypertension, we selected 36 patients [13M;23F] with at least moderate or severe precapillary pulmonary hypertension, because they lived in Parma and the neighboring municipalities under study. 28 had idiopathic pulmonary hypertension (PAH); 8 had pulmonary hypertension associated with scleroderma. Conclusions: This study has been designed to improve our understanding of pathophysiological link from air pollution and pulmonary hypertension.The findings could potentially allow for a more appropriate approach to the pathology