Maureen Newman,  —

To date, twelve therapies have been approved to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Of these, three were approved last year, indicating significant progress in understanding and treating PAH. These advancements were greatly needed, as according to the recent publication of “Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: Progress and Challenges in…

A 2011 study entitled, “Pulmonary hypertension in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: a target of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibition in a 1-year study” identified the fact that prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is increasing in the patient population, and that patient prognosis worsens among those…

While it is commonly accepted that patients with scleroderma are at a higher risk for contracting pulmonary hypertension, the field has progressed immensely since the first hypothesis was tested in the laboratory. “Recent Advances in Scleroderma-associated Pulmonary Hypertension,” published in…

A recent study conducted in Brazil suggests noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (CPAP) does not contribute to ventilation-related complications in pulmonary hypertension patients. These results are encouraging, as there had been previous reports demonstrating that mechanical ventilation of patients with pulmonary hypertension results in unfavorable hemodynamic effects. Until this study,”…

A protein within the glycolytic metabolism pathway, which is key to providing energy for cell processes, is increased in induced animal models of pulmonary arterial hypertension. This finding, reported in the journal Respiratory Research in an article entitled, “Up-regulation of Hexokinase 1 in…

When admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), chances are high that the patient has an existing condition in addition to the affliction causing their admittance to the ICU. It is vital that these existing conditions be considered by clinicians when developing a course of treatment, as many times…

Patients who show signs of pulmonary hypertension are reliably diagnosed non-invasively at the doctor’s office using Doppler echocardiography, a form of ultrasound. A group of researchers at the University of Heidelberg in Germany conducted a study of 1695 patients and determined that Doppler echocardiography reliably assessed systolic pulmonary artery…

Clinical application of sildenafil, a phosphodiesterase inhibitor studied for efficacy in treating pulmonary hypertension, to a patient with systemic sclerosis gave meaningful data that support results of basic laboratory research on sildenafil. The patient, a 40 year old female with diffuse…

New insights into the molecular mechanisms of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) and idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (iPAH) generally lead to new avenues of research for treatments that may work better than existing treatments or open the doors for previously untreatable patients. Work from Medical University Vienna in Austria,…

While a major population of pulmonary hypertension patients are diagnosed with idiopathic or arterial pulmonary hypertension, a population of patients with pulmonary hypertension patients due to sarcoidosis is no less affected by the condition. Estimates from a paper published in Seminars in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine state that…

Overwhelmingly positive results of Mast Therapeutics, Inc.‘s Phase 2 clinical trial of AIR001 (sodium nitrite, or Aironite®) inhalation solution for pulmonary arterial hypertension will lead to the company’s pursuit of additional Phase 2 trials in the near future. All doses of AIR001 were well-tolerated by patients and provided improvements…

When Gilead Sciences, Inc. initiated a clinical trial for first-line combination therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension treatment, the company felt that their ambitious approach to developing a new, viable therapy for the disease was worthy of the clinical trial name “AMBITION.” Now, according to a…