Pulmonary hypertension is common in critical care settings and in presence of right ventricular failure is challenging to manage. Pulmonary hypertension in pregnant patients carries a high mortality rates between 30-56%. In the past decade, new treatments for pulmonary hypertension have emerged. Their application in pregnant women with pulmonary hypertension may hold promise in reducing morbidi...

Pulmonary hypertension has been identified as one of the well known life threatening complications of connective tissue diseases. In patients with connective tissue diseases pulmonary hypertension occurs with little or no evidence of parenchymal lung disease. As in primary pulmonary hypertension, the pathophysiology is unknown but the clinical course and pathological findings are similar. Scler...

BACKGROUND Most patients with familial primary pulmonary hypertension have defects in the gene for bone morphogenetic protein receptor II (BMPR2), a member of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily of receptors. Because patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia may have lung disease that is indistinguishable from primary pulmonary hypertension, we investigated the ...

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis is a highly prevalent disease with >200 million infected people. Pulmonary hypertension is one of the pulmonary manifestations in this disease, particularly in its hepatosplenic presentation. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of pulmonary hypertension in schistosomiasis patients with the hepatosplenic form of the disease. METHODS AND RESULTS All ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Evidence-based therapies and guidelines for pulmonary arterial hypertension are critiqued. RECENT FINDINGS Morbidity and mortality in pulmonary arterial hypertension reflects failure of right ventricular compensation for increased afterload caused by obstructive pulmonary arterial remodeling. This predominantly reflects excessive proliferation/impaired apoptosis of smooth mu...

Pulmonary hypertension complicates the course of many newborns with congenital diaphragmatic hernia. In the most severe cases, the fetal condition of markedly elevated pulmonary vascular resistance persists after birth and is associated with hypoxemic respiratory failure and severe disturbances in cardiac performance. Late pulmonary hypertension (weeks to months after birth) is increasingly rec...

Pulmonary hypertension is a common accompaniment of many cardiac and pulmonary disorders, for which the status of the pulmonary vascular bed is oftentimes the principal determinant of the clinical manifestations, course, and feasibility of surgical treatment. The prognosis for patients with pulmonary hypertension varies greatly, depending upon the cause of the pulmonary hypertension and its sev...

The therapy of pulmonary hypertension has evolved rapidly in the last 10 years from the use of non-selective vasodilators to drugs that specifically target pulmonary vasodilation, endothelial function, and vascular remodeling. Sildenafil is a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor that has an expanding role in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. Case series and small studies, as well as the fi...