Editorial
A new era in the treatment of primary pulmonary hypertension
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) is a disease associated with significant morbidity and mortality that occurs most commonly in young and middle aged women.1 Until recently, there had been only a limited number of therapies available to treat this disease. Over the years, however, endeavours in cellular and molecular research have improved our understanding of this disease process and allowed for the development of targeted approaches to treatment. These new therapies have created an atmosphere of optimism in the management of a disease was considered untreatable.
Pulmonary vasoconstriction was long considered to be the only
"treatable" aspect of PPH. Accordingly, the treatment of PPH focused on the administration of oral vasodilators, mainly calcium channel blockers, in the hope of countering the vasoconstrictive process. The treatment of this subset of "vasoreactive" patients with calcium channel blockers has been shown to result in improvements in symptoms, exercise tolerance, cardiopulmonary haemodynamics, and
survival.2 Unfortunately,
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Gurbanov, E., Shiliang, X.
(2006). The key role of apoptosis in the pathogenesis and treatment of pulmonary hypertension.. Eur. J. Cardiothorac. Surg.
30: 499-507
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Schachna, L., Wigley, F. M., Chang, B., White, B., Wise, R. A., Gelber, A. C.
(2003). Age and Risk of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Scleroderma. Chest
124: 2098-2104
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Fukuchi, K., Hayashida, K., Nakanishi, N., Inubushi, M., Kyotani, S., Nagaya, N., Ishida, Y.
(2002). Quantitative Analysis of Lung Perfusion in Patients with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension. JNM
43: 757-761
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Hoeper, M. M., Galie, N., Simonneau, G., Rubin, L. J.
(2002). New Treatments for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med.
165: 1209-1216
[Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
