Lung Vascular Pathobiology and Pulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive and fatal disease that predominantly affects women. PAH constitutes a heterogeneous group of clinical disorders sharing similar pathogenic mechanisms and categorized as idiopathic PAH, heritable PAH, associated PAH, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN), and pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) and pulmonary capillary haemangiomatosis (PCH). Other types of pulmonary hypertension (PH) include PH due to left heart diseases, PH due to lung diseases and/or hypoxemia, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) and PH with unclear multifactorial mechanisms (e.g., PH associated with sarcoidosis, vasculitis, or tumoral obstruction). Several areas of translational study are under way at the University of Arizona Department of Medicine to better understand the underlying causes of these conditions.