Right Ventricle Vasculature in Human Pulmonary Hypertension Assessed by Stereology

Metabolism and bioenergetics in the right ventricle and pulmonary vasculature in pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a syndrome in which pulmonary vascular cross sectional area and compliance are reduced by vasoconstriction, vascular remodeling, and inflammation. Vascular remodeling results in part from increased proliferation and impaired apoptosis of vascular cells. The resulting increase in afterload promotes right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) and RV failure. Recen...

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,...