Care of Patients with Pulmonary Artery HypertensionSubcutaneous implantation of a new intravenous pump system for prostacyclin treatment in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension
Section snippets
Case Report
We report on a 74-year-old woman suffering from idiopathic PAH (New York Heart Association functional class III). The first diagnosis was rendered in 2001 at the University Specialized Center for Pulmonary Hypertension at Innsbruck Medical University (Innsbruck, Austria). Since then, the patient has been controlled regularly, and her therapy was adopted according to a goal-oriented strategy.5, 8, 10 Her most recent right heart catheter revealed hemodynamics of mean pulmonary artery pressure at
Discussion
The use of prostanoid constitutes a cornerstone in the treatment of PAH.5, 6 To their advantage, prostanoids can be applied by an oral, inhalational, subcutaneous, or intravenous route. However, their main disadvantage involves the short half-life of all available prostacyclin analogues, which results in continuous parenteral delivery. Currently, 4 prostacyclin analogues are licensed for the treatment of PAH: epoprostenol, treprostinil, and iloprost in the United States and some European
Acknowledgments
The work of C.M.K. was supported by the Verein für Tumorforschung—Pneumologie.
References (21)
- et al.
Medical therapy of pulmonary hypertension: conventional therapies
Clin Chest Med
(2001) - et al.
Long-term intravenous epoprostenol infusion in primary pulmonary hypertension: prognostic factors and survival
J Am Coll Cardiol
(2002) - et al.
Medical therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension: updated ACCP evidence-based clinical practice guidelines
Chest
(2007) - et al.
Efficacy of long-term subcutaneous treprostinil sodium therapy in pulmonary hypertension
Chest
(2006) - et al.
Transitioning from i.v. epoprostenol to subcutaneous treprostinil in pulmonary arterial hypertension
Chest
(2002) - et al.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension: baseline characteristics from the REVEAL Registry
Chest
(2010) - et al.
Prostacyclin (epoprostenol) and heart-lung transplantation as treatments for severe pulmonary hypertension
Br Heart J
(1993) - et al.
Survival in primary pulmonary hypertension: the impact of epoprostenol therapy
Circulation
(2002) - et al.
Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary hypertension: the Task Force for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS), endorsed by the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT)
Eur Heart J
(2009) - et al.
Treprostinil for pulmonary hypertension
Vasc Health Risk Manag
(2008)
Cited by (0)
The authors received no funding from the pump distributor OMT (Frittlingen, Germany) or the treprostinil supplier AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals (Vienna, Austria) for this article.