Pulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary Hypertension

What is pulmonary hypertension?

A rare disease, pulmonary hypertension is an elevated blood pressure in the lung vasculature. High pressure is exerted on the walls of the pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein and pulmonary capillaries that make up the pulmonary vasculature.

When you ever feel any signs of shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting or other symptoms that are exacerbated by an exertion it might possibly be due to pulmonary hypertension. Pulmonary hypertension can be a severe disease marked by a decreased exercise tolerance and many a times, heart failure. Thus in case you have any of the aforementioned signs and symptoms it’s my advice you head for complete check up.

There are several general terms that relates to this disorder that should be familiarized to know about this type of hypertension.

Primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) that is characterized by elevated pulmonary artery pressure with no apparent cause it is also termed as pre capillary pulmonary hypertension or more commonly now as idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH).

The term IPAH is now preferred for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) of an unknown etiology, and thus IPAH represents pulmonary vascular disease.

This disease was first identified by Dr. Ernst von Romberg in the year 1891. Since then it is under study as a rare but significant disease of the heart and lungs.

According to the most recent classification, it can be one of five different types on which the treatment depends upon;

• arterial

• venous

• hypoxic

• thromboembolic

• Miscellaneous

What is the incidence of pulmonary hypertension?

Being a rare disorder it inflicts approximately 125-150 deaths per year only in the United States while it has an incidence rate of approximately 2-6 cases in each million of the population per year.

Approximately the same worldwide incidence of IPAH is seen as in the US with slight variations worldwide. A registry of IPAH patients in France found about 6 cases per million populations of IPAH patients.

Also observed is the fact that the incidence and prevalence of APAH are considerably higher than those for IPAH.

We will further update you on this disease about all of its aspects so you can have an insight of your disease.