News

Balloon pulmonary angioplasty, or BPA, can be an effective treatment for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), a new study highlights. “Patients treated with BPA experienced improvement in functional class and exercise capabilities, with relatively low rates of procedure-related complications,” researchers wrote. The study, “Refined Balloon Pulmonary…

A gene called RASA3 may be a candidate gene — one suspected of playing a role in a specific trait or disorder — in the development of pulmonary hypertension (PH) among people with sickle cell disease (SCD), according to a new study. Reduced activity of RASA3 was evident…

Blood levels of a protein called thrombospondin-2 (TSP2) — related to clinically identifiable measures of right heart structure and function — are consistently increased across patients with different types of pulmonary hypertension (PH), a study in Germany suggests. According to the researchers, these data indicate “that plasma [blood] TSP2…

Tenax Therapeutics is planning to start a Phase 3 clinical trial of TNX-103 — oral levosimendan — to treat pulmonary hypertension and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (PH-HFpEF) later this year. People with PH-HFpEF have a normal heartbeat, but the heart muscle is too stiff to fill…

Statistical models using U.S. insurance data can help to predict the risk of hospitalization within one year of starting on treatment among people with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), scientists report. Identified risk factors for pulmonary hypertension-related hospitalization included female sex, shortness of breath, and…

Measuring blood levels of three molecules — SAM, guanine, and NT-proBNP — could help identify pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in children with congenital heart diseases (CHD), a study suggests. “This 3-marker panel has the potential to be used in clinical practice for the early diagnosis and screening of PAH-CHD,”…

Oral Uptravi (selexipag) provided similar clinical benefits for adults with connective tissue disease (CTD) associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) as for those without CTD, according to a health claims database analysis. PAH patients with CTDs treated with Uptravi in real-world settings had similar risks of disease progression…

Noninvasive clinical assessments to identify children with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) at risk of poorer outcomes align well with right heart catheterization (RHC), an invasive procedure, but they are not accurate enough to forgo a need for RHC altogether, according to a recent study. Scientists found that about 70%…

Self-compassion, the act of being kind to oneself, was a significant predictor of anxiety and depression in adults with pulmonary hypertension (PH), a questionnaire-based study reported. Self-compassion also predicted the burden of those who care for patients. The findings suggest psychological and supportive interventions that build self-compassion are needed…

Using a noninvasive test in conjunction with other assessments may reduce the need to undergo right heart catheterization — a reliable but invasive procedure known as RHC — for diagnosing pulmonary hypertension (PH) in people with interstitial lung disease (ILD), according to a new study. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET),…

A long noncoding RNA molecule (lncRNA) — a long segment of RNA that regulates protein production in the body — may activate or inhibit genes associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), according to researchers in China. In their study, a lncRNA was found at higher levels in children with…

Certain genes are differentially expressed, meaning they have different activity, in people with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) whose right side of the heart fails to work as it should, a study found. Researchers believe that those genes, generally involved in regulating the electrical properties of the heart’s muscle cells,…