Pulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension is high blood pressure in the arteries to your lungs. It is a serious condition for which there are treatments but no cure. If you have it, the blood vessels that carry oxygen-poor blood from your heart to your lungs become hard and narrow. Your heart has to work harder to pump the blood through. Over time, your heart weakens and cannot do its job and you can develop heart failure.

There are two main kinds of pulmonary hypertension. One runs in families or appears for no known reason. The other kind is related to another condition, usually heart or lung disease.

Treating pulmonary hypertension involves treating the heart or lung disease, medicines, oxygen and sometimes lung transplantation.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Pulmonary Hypertension on Wikipedia

In medicine, '''pulmonary hypertension''' (PH) or '''pulmonary artery hypertension''' (PAH) is an increase in blood pressure in the pulmonary artery or lung vasculature. Depending on the cause, it can be a severe disease with a markedly decreased exercise tolerance and right-sided heart failure.

Signs and symptoms

A history usually reveals gradual onset of shortness of breath, fatigue, angina pectoris, syncope (fainting) and peripheral oedema. In order to establish the cause, the physician will generally conduct a thorough medical history and physical examination. A detailed family history is taken to determine whether the disease might be familial.

Diagnosis

Normal pulmonary arterial pressure in a person living at sea level has a mean value of 12-16mmHg. Definite pulmonary hypertension is present when mean pressures at rest exceed 25 mmHg. Although pulmonary arterial pressure can be estimated on the basis of echocardiography, pressure sampling with a Swan-Ganz catheter provides the most definite measurement. Diagnostic tests generally involve blood tests, electrocardiography, arterial blood gas measurements, X-rays of the chest (generally followed by high-resolution CT scanning). A biopsy of lung tissue, angiography with endoluminal biopsy of the pulmonary artery, or biopsy of any associated skin lesions, is often attempted to obtain tissue for histopathology investigation. Clinical improvement is often measured in a "six-minute walking test", i.e. the distance a patient can walk in six minutes.

Causes and mechanisms

Pulmonary hypertension can be ''primary'' (occurring without an obvious cause) or ''secondary'' (a result of other disease processes.)

Primary PH

Primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) is considered a genetic disorder. It has been linked to mutations in the ''BMPR2'' gene, which encodes a receptor (biochemistry) ... [ Read More ]

External Resources

Pulmonary Hypertension Association - Information for people with COPD and PH by way of message boards, articles, and other resources.

Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn - A definition along with look at the diagnosis, treatment and the prognosis, from the University of Washington Academic Medical Center.

My Name is Roosje Smid - Information about this 4 year old who has Pulmonary Hypertension, a Congenital Heart Lung Defect. Heart lung transplant will be needed in the future.

Virtual Hospital: COPD with Pulmonary Hypertension and Cor Pulmonale - A discussion about treatments including beta-agonist inhalers, anticholinergic inhalers, theophylline, corticosteroids and other therapies.

Cor Pulmonale in Systemic Lupus Erythematosis - Reports a case of SLE who presented with severe pulmonary hypertension and cor pulmonale without any evidence of parenchymal lung disease.

Pulmonary Hypertension Association - Features association background, disease and treatment information, news, research, and message boards.

PPH Cure Foundation - A non-governmental funder of medical research into the causes of and therapies for primary pulmonary hypertension. Includes background information, research articles, clinical trials, and patient stories.

American Heart Association: Primary or Unexplained Pulmonary Hypertension - Brief explanation of the diagnosis and treatment of PPH.

American Heart Association: Pulmonary Hypertension - Brief description of the cause and treatment of this disease.

Pulmonary Hypertension Association (UK) - Features organization background, disease information, research articles, chat room, and message boards.

Related Pages on HealthTales.com:

Pulmonary arterial hypertension
Pulmonary Embolism
Pulmonary Fibrosis
COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)