Summary of complications of balloon pulmonary angioplasty for patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and comparison between high-volume (performing more than 50 BPA sessions) and general institutions performing BPA sessions
| Year | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | Total |
| Number of institutions | 30 | 42 | 48 | 50 | 120 |
| Sessions | 479 | 467 | 714 | 852 | 2512 |
| Complication (%) * | 10 (2.1) | 30 (6.4) | 45 (6.3) | 49 (5.8) | 134 (5.3) |
| 95% CI (%) | 1.0–3.8 | 4.4–9.0 | 4.6–8.3 | 4.3–7.5 | |
| In-hospital death (%) | 1 (0.2) | 2 (0.4) | 1 (0.1) | 0 (0.0) | 4 (0.2) |
| Required blood transfusion (%) | 3 (0.6) | 2 (0.4) | 2 (0.3) | 2 (0.2) | 9 (0.4) |
| Emergent surgical treatment (%) | 1 (0.2) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (0.0) |
| Distal embolism (%) | 1 (0.2) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (0.0) |
| Vessel rupture (%) | 5 (1.0) | 6 (1.3) | 6 (0.8) | 6 (0.7) | 23 (0.9) |
| Acute obstruction (%) | 1 (0.2) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (0.0) |
| Contrast-induced nephropathy (%) | 1 (0.2) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (0.1) | 0 (0.0) | 2 (0.1) |
| Others (%) | 7 (1.5) | 23 (4.9) | 37 (5.2) | 42 (4.9) | 109 (4.3) |
| ‘Bloody sputum’ or ‘lung bleeding’ | 3 (0.6) | 20 (4.2) | 29 (4.1) | 25 (2.9) | 77 (3.0) |
| Cardiac shock required mechanical support | No data | No data | No data | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) |
| Number of facilities | |||||
| High volume (%) | 2 (6.7) | 2 (4.8) | 3 (6.3) | 6 (12.0) | |
| General (%) | 28 (93.3) | 40 (95.2) | 45 (93.7) | 44 (88.0) | |
| Number of BPA session | |||||
| High volume (%) | 229 (47.8) | 151 (32.3) | 249 (34.9) | 451 (52.9) | |
| General (%) | 250 (52.2) | 316 (67.7) | 465 (65.1) | 401 (47.1) | |
| Incidence of complications (%) | |||||
| High volume | 0.9 | 6.0 | 10.4 | 6.7 | 6.2 |
| General | 3.2 | 6.6 | 4.1 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| P value | 0.14 | 0.94 | 0.002 | 0.29 | 0.11 |
*p = 0.017
BPA, balloon pulmonary angioplasty.