Millions of people are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension), a condition in which blood travels through the body’s arteries at a pressure too high for good health. High blood pressure in the arteries that supply the lungs is called pulmonary hypertension (PHT). The blood pressure measured by cuff on your arm isn’t directly related to the pressure in your lungs. The blood vessels that supply the lungs constrict and their walls thicken, so they can’t carry as much blood. Although the terms primary pulmonary hypertension (meaning of unknown cause) and secondary pulmonary hypertension (meaning due to another medical condition) still persist in materials disseminated to patients and the general public, these terms have largely been abandoned in the medical literature.
The heart works harder, trying to force the blood through. Nearly 50 million Americans have high blood pressure (also known as hypertension). There are two main kinds of pulmonary hypertension. The most common cause of pulmonary hypertension is left heart failure leading to pulmonary venous hypertension (WHO Group II).
What are the signs of pulmonary hypertension?
The first priority is to raise the oxygen level in the blood with oxygen therapy. Children who respond to pulmonary vasodilators, which are medications that relax the muscles in the blood vessel walls and cause the blood vessels to widen, are treated with calcium channel blockers. Calcium channel blockers help the heart to pump blood by relaxing the smooth muscle in the walls of the heart. Patients who don’t respond to a vasodilator are treated with prostacyclin, which is another drug that dilates the blood vessels. The child may also be given additional medications to treat heart failure, if present. In secondary pulmonary hypertension, surgery may be necessary to correct any known cause.
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