Pulmonary arterial hypertension

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Sildenafil for pulmonary arterial hypertension: when blue turns into white” (Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2006 Sep;7(13):1801-10). Author is Antoniu SA, from the Clinic of Pulmonary Disease, Gr.T.Popa Iasi, Iasi, Romania. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a life-threatening, rare disease characterised by vasoconstriction and vascular remodeling of pulmonary artery vessels. Until several years ago, therapeutic approaches were represented mainly by ‘conventional therapy’ (anticoagulants, calcium channel blockers, diuretics and digoxin, and oxygen therapy). But recently ‘specific therapies’ (i.e., therapies targeting specific pathogenic pathways) have become available; these are therapies represented by prostacyclin and its derivatives, endothelin receptor antagonists or phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.