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(Circulation. 2008;117:2966-2968.)
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

The Status of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in 2008

Harrison W. Farber, MD

From the Pulmonary Hypertension Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence to Harrison W. Farber, MD, Boston University School of Medicine, Pulmonary Center, 715 Albany St, R304, Boston, MA 02116. E-mail hfarber@bu.edu

Key Words: Editorials • pulmonary heart disease • hypertension, pulmonary

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease that, until recently, had no effective medical therapy. In 1996, a prostacyclin, epoprostenol, was approved; since then, several therapies, including prostacyclin analogues and agents that modulate other vasoactive pathways – endothelin receptor antagonists and phosphodiesterase inhibitors – have received approval. In this issue of Circulation, Galiè et al report the results of the 2 pivotal trials of the endothelin receptor antagonist, ambrisentan, that lead the US Food and Drug Administration to approve this agent in June 2007.¹

Article p 3010

With the approval of ambrisentan, 6 different pulmonary-specific vasodilators delivered by various routes have now been approved in the United States for treatment of PAH; moreover, numerous other therapies have either been submitted for approval or are in development. Most physicians who treat PAH are aware of the data that lead to approval of ambrisentan; for this reason, it would seem more logically an opportune time to examine critically the current status of treatment for PAH.

With that in mind; I will focus on several issues: (1) Where are we in the treatment of PAH? (2) Are we happy with where we are? (3) If not, why not? and (4) What do we need to do to get there?

	The Status of Treatment for PAH

 
Although we "pulmonary hypertensionologists" think we have made a significant impact on this disease, is this really true? We believe that we have improved the clinical status of our patients and their survival, but do we have data to support our "gestalt" . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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