[Pulmonary hypertension: new insights from techniques imaging].
Pulmonary hypertension is a very serious condition, with 10-year survival rates under 10%. Despite this, knowledge of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying its development and progression has been seriously limited by a lack of appropriate tools for studying the condition. The introduction of new noninvasive high-resolution imaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging, could provide a promising new approach to the investigation of not only the anatomical, but also the functional and molecular, features of pulmonary hypertension. As has happened with atherosclerotic disease in recent years, high-resolution imaging, combined with other imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) and positron-emission tomography, could provide useful data on morphological and physiological factors of fundamental importance to understanding unresolved issues concerning the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Moreover, the application of molecular techniques is leading to the development of a new discipline, molecular imaging, that will enable patients to be studied from a biological perspective and which could uncover mechanisms of great clinical relevance in experimental models. The key to the treatment of pulmonary arterial disease could be discovered by studying these mechanisms. For example, knowledge of the pathways involved in the development of endothelial dysfunction or in endothelial repair associated with bone marrow-derived cells--a common feature of a number of cardiovascular conditions--could lead to treatments that are able to stimulate endothelial replacement with circulating progenitor cells in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension of whatever etiology.
Fuster
Valentín
V
Mount Sinai Medical Center, Nueva York 10029-6574, Estados Unidos.
Sanz
Javier
J
D006801:Humans; D006976:Hypertension, Pulmonary / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed