Pulmonary hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a case for treatment.

摘要: Current pharmacotherapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) relieves symptoms and reduces exacerbation through improving airflow limitation. Such drugs do not effectively improve exercise tolerance due in part to hypertension associated with severe COPD, nor impact on its increased morbidity mortality. Exercise intolerance is often improved (temporarily) by lung volume reduction surgery rehabilitation. Ambulatory oxygen the most effective treatment of Chronic cigarette smoking principal cause COPD. An early change smokers' lungs artery intimal thickening vessel narrowing, which, as COPD develops, correlated both severity emphysema bronchiolitis. This may be consequence combined smoking-induced apoptosis, inflammation, imperfect repair. End-stage bronchiolitis are likely limit effectiveness bronchodilators corticosteroids. There treatments idiopathic scleroderma arterial hypertension, which increase survival. Because share a common vascular thickening, excess endothelin receptor expression, plasma endothelin-1, an important therapeutic question address whether oral endothelin-1 antagonist can