Treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension is developed

14 Sep 2009 - Posted by the Editorial Team

Blocking the effects of endothelin has led to a successful treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.

This is according to researchers at Zurich School of Medicine, Switzerland, who said that the discovery offers hope in terms of treating other chronic diseases.

Endothelin's receptors, ETA and ETB, were first discovered in the early 1990s, with the substance's role involving the constriction of blood vessels and the stimulation of cell growth.

While findings have suggested that endothelin antagonists will play an important role in treating pulmonary hypertension therapy in the future, there are still issues to be resolved.

These include whether drugs that block ETA alone will be more effective in treating pulmonary hypertension than medications that block both ETA and ETB, while it also needs to be determined if drugs can be combined with others such as vasodilators.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension is characterised by raised pressure in the pulmonary arteries, which carry blood from the heart to the lungs in order to pick up oxygen.

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