Right Ventricle in Pulmonary Hypertension

The right ventricle in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a right heart failure syndrome. In early-stage PAH, the right ventricle tends to remain adapted to afterload with increased contractility and little or no increase in right heart chamber dimensions. However, less than optimal right ventricular (RV)-arterial coupling may already cause a decreased aerobic exercise capacity by limiting maximum cardiac outpu...

Pulmonary hypertension-induced GATA4 activation in the right ventricle.

The major cause of death among pulmonary hypertension patients is right heart failure, but the biology of right heart is not well understood. Previous studies showed that mechanisms of the activation of GATA4, a major regulator of cardiac hypertrophy, in response to pressure overload are different between left and right ventricles. In the left ventricle, aortic constriction triggers GATA4 activ...

Right ventricle in pulmonary hypertension: echocardiography strikes back?

More on the right ventricle in pulmonary hypertension.

In the present issue of the European Respiratory Journal, COURAND et al. [1] report on the prognostic relevance of radionuclide angiography of the right ventricle (RV) in a cohort of 100 patients with idiopathic, heritable or drug-related pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Patients with a baseline RV ejection fraction (RVEF) >25% had better survival than those with a RVEF <25%. Furthermore,...

The role of the right ventricle in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Although changes in the pulmonary vasculature are the primary cause of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), severity of symptoms and survival are strongly associated with right ventricular function, and right heart failure is the main cause of death in patients with PAH. Echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging allow noninvasive evaluation of right ventricular function and stru...