Lindsey Shapiro, PhD,  science writer—

Note: The headline of this article was updated Feb. 27, 2023, to better reflect that Veletri is considered a safe and effective therapy at the approved and recommended dosing levels.  Treatment with Veletri (epoprostenol AS) infusion was generally well-tolerated and safe, but did not lead to clinical improvements for…

People with pulmonary hypertension (PH) who had elevated blood levels of the trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) molecule were at a five times greater risk of a poor prognosis than patients who didn’t have high levels, according to a recent study. High levels of this gut-derived metabolite were generally linked to…

Dosing is complete in a Phase 1 clinical trial of AER-901, Aerami Therapeutics’ inhaled formulation of imatinib that’s being investigated to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Aerami plans to advance the experimental therapy to a proof-of-concept Phase 2 trial in the first half of 2023. To do so,…

Researchers have created an automated way to engineer a more stable peptide-based therapy, which could inform the production of new and improved treatments for diseases like pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The research was led by Yousef Al-Abed, PhD, co-director of the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for…

Real-world use of Opsumit (macitentan) was generally safe, with few liver-related toxicities seen, according to data from two registries largely made up of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients. Collective data from the two registries met a requirement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for additional real-world safety…

A rare mutation in the GDF2 gene was identified in two siblings, a boy and a girl, with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), according to a recent case report. The mutation, which each child inherited in both gene copies, resulted in a lack of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) 9 in the…

People with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are at a higher risk of acute heart failure when admitted to the hospital for sepsis or septic shock than are patients without PAH, a U.S. study found. Sepsis — the body’s severe response to infection — in PAH patients, however, was not…

Digital health company Eko has been awarded $2.7 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithm that can detect pulmonary hypertension (PH) and classify its severity. The algorithm will analyze data from two common, noninvasive heart tests collected via Eko’s digital smart…

The Mayo Clinic will use a digital clinical trial platform developed by Triall in an upcoming pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) study. The platform will support all core activities related to the study, including data capture, document management, monitoring, and electronic consent forms to safeguard the integrity of…

Measuring blood levels of a certain type of DNA released by damaged cells — called cell-free DNA — may be a way to monitor disease severity in people with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a study found. The study’s researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) say the test…

Blood levels of IL-6 and PTX3 — two inflammatory proteins — could serve as prognostic biomarkers in people with pulmonary hypertension (PH) associated with left-sided heart disease, a study suggests. Higher levels of both were linked to a greater risk of dying and higher levels of NT-proBNP, a known…

Nearly a third (29.7%) of COVID-19 patients showed signs of pulmonary hypertension (PH) on an echocardiogram — a scan of heart movement — according to a study in the Netherlands. While mortality rates were significantly higher among those with suspected PH than those without it, follow-up tests suggested that…