Screening for Pulmonary Hypertension in Antiphospholipid Antibody Positive Lupus Erythematosus.

Group 2: PH due to left heart diseases. Group 3: PH due to respiratory diseases. Group 4: Chronic thrombo-embolic PH. G r o u p 5 : P H w i t h u n c l e a r multifactoral mechanisms. The pathogenes is o f PH in SLE can be multifactorial , but pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is the commonest cause. This is characterised by increase in mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mPAP) ≥25 mmHg at rest as assessed by r ight heart catheter isat ion a n d w i t h n o r m a l p u l m o n a r y capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) of ≤15 mmHg. Chronic thromboembolic state, interstitial lung disease, venoccclusive disease and myocardial involvement can occur in minority of SLE patients. This suggests that all but group 5 of Dana Point classification7 can occur in SLEaPH. D e s p i t e t h e i n c r e a s i n g recognition of SLEaPH, diagnosis is often delayed. This may lead to unfavourable outcomes. Lian et al8 suggested that more than 40% of the SLEaPH patients have no symptoms in the early stage of PH. One of the reasons for this is that patients with connective tissue disease like SLE, may be relatively sedentary and therefore do not develop symptoms until their disease is quite advanced.9 In general, the clinical symptoms Screening for Pulmonary Hypertension in Antiphospholipid Antibody Positive Lupus Erythematosus