Maureen Newman,  —

Some of the most difficult-to-treat patients with pulmonary hypertension are those with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). These patients are in the most severe category of pulmonary hypertension: World Health Organization (WHO) Group 4. CTEPH patients have curative potential if they have no resectable lesions or contraindications…

Endothelin-receptor antagonists (ERAs), recently discussed on Pulmonary Hypertension News as being effective for treating pulmonary hypertension, have been a standard part of clinician’s portfolios along with phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors and calcium channel blockers. The common definition for “treating pulmonary…

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) on its own is burdensome to the patients it afflicts, but when PH is combined with other diseases, the conditions can be devastating. In the case of pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema…

Early detection of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is vital to addressing and potentially preventing the most common cause of severe pulmonary hypertension. A number of clinical diagnostic parameters have been studied and effectively practiced, but detection can extend beyond the doctor’s office. A study…

More often than not, risk factors for and development rates of cardiovascular diseases vary according to race and ethnicity, and pulmonary arterial hypertension due to systemic sclerosis is no exception. A study from Johns Hopkins University, appearing in the journal European Respiratory Journal, identified the…

Pulmonary hypertension can be a devastating disease, especially when it impacts infants and children. A new study in Pediatrics from Nagasaki University and Nagasaki University Hospital in Japan and Khanh Hoa General Hospital and Health Service in Vietnam found high rates of mortality from pulmonary hypertension in…

As new medications for pulmonary hypertension are approved and marketed, it is important to evaluate their efficacy, both absolutely and relative to tried-and-true products. Macitentan, marketed under the name Opsumit by Actelion, is approved to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension patients under the World Health Organization classification of…

Inhalation of a small molecule known as PK10453, formally known as (R-phenyl)pyrazin-R-methylnicotinamide, prevented pulmonary arterial hypertension progression in rats who were predisposed for developing pulmonary hypertension. Researchers under the leadership of Dr. Lawrence Zisman at Bassett Medical Center and other institutes in New York and Minnesota published their new…

As any scleroderma patient knows, the disease has no cure and no effective treatments exist. The main goal of current treatments is reducing inflammation which, often times, is not enough to provide relief to patients, especially those who have developed pulmonary hypertension as a result of thickened pulmonary arteries.

Scleroderma patients, who are sometimes affected by pulmonary hypertension, are becoming routinely treated with stem cell transplants. Dr. Dinesh Khanna, at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology, previewed the results of the Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation International Scerloderma…

Any newly-diagnosed pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patient could probably testify to the hardships of having the disease, and new research provides concrete evidence of a substantial burden. More than half of these patients are hospitalized within three years of their diagnosis. Lead author Charles Burger, MD, from the Mayo…

Putting an end to one familial case of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) without a known cause, a recent study published in New England Journal of Medicine investigated the mutation responsible for one family’s idiopathic PAH. Lead authors Lijang Ma, MD, PhD, and Danilo Roman-Campos, PhD, principal investigator…