Assessing pulmonary hypertension severity in lung disease is a key step to improving outcomes: embrace resistance and don't be pressurised to go with the flow

Managing patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) in association with chronic lung disease and/or hypoxia (PH-CLD) remains one of the most challenging areas in pulmonary vascular medicine. Its presence in COPD and interstitial lung disease (ILD) impacts negatively on symptoms and survival [1, 2], predicts more frequent exacerbations [3] and has the worst prognosis of all forms of PH [4]. In contrast to treatment advances seen in other forms of PH, for the majority of patients with PH-CLD, treatment remains aimed at the underlying lung disease, including lung transplantation in suitable patients. One of the major challenges to evaluating new therapies in PH-CLD relates to the heterogeneity of pulmonary vascular involvement.
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research