Raynaud's disease in primary pulmonary hypertension.

PARTICULARLY since the advent of cardiac catheterization, primary pulmonary hypertension has been of increasing interest to clinicians and pathologists alike. To some it represents a pulmonary vasospastic disease, presumably of neurohumoral type, analogous to systemic essential hypertension. The occasional association of primary pulmonary hypertension with Raynaud's disease is thought to support this theory. Seven case reports are available in which Raynaud's disease was associated with what was considered to be primary pulmonary hypertension.'-4 The detailed findings in the case of Taft and Mallory' and that of Wade and Ball2 are of particular interest because of the scarcity of pathologic investigations in cases of Raynaud's disease with or without pulmonary hypertension. Pulmonary hypertension was confirmed by cardiac catheterization in 3 of the 7 cases, but without autopsy confirmation. One of these 3 catheterized patients (case 2 of Smith and Kroop3) has since died, and an autopsy was performed.