# A cautionary note on the naive use of general-population biobanks to study pulmonary arterial hypertension, with a focus on Mendelian randomisation

## TL;DR

This paper warns against using general-population biobanks to study pulmonary arterial hypertension due to potential misclassification and low accuracy.

## Contribution

The paper highlights the risks of false findings when using general-population biobanks for PAH research.

## Key findings

- Using general-population biobanks for PAH leads to false-positive and false-negative results.
- Non-random misclassification and low power are major issues in such studies.

## Abstract

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is defined by a mean pulmonary artery pressure >20 mmHg [1]. Patients with PH are assigned to one of five internationally recognised groups. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), or group 1 PH, is a heterogeneous collection of conditions characterised by increased precapillary pulmonary vascular resistance. Groups 2 to 5 PH comprise PH caused, in turn, by left heart disease, lung diseases (e.g. COPD), chronic thromboembolism, and miscellaneous causes such as haematological diseases.

There are two issues with using existing data from general-population biobanks to study PAH: low power and non-random misclassification. Relative to gold standard data, this results in false-positive and false-negative findings.
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