Early treatment of exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis (DSB.AD002.049)

Thematic area

Biomedical sciences

Project area

Structure responsible for the research project

Institute of clinical physiology (IFC)

Project manager

LUNA GARGANI
Phone number: 0503152376
Email: gargani@ifc.cnr.it

Abstract

Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) are at risk of developing pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which affects their prognosis. PAH is often diagnosed late, when therapies are no longer effective. Exercise-Doppler echocardiography (EDE) enables a non-invasive identification of stress-induced increase in pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP), an early pre- clinical phase anticipating resting PAH.
Two-hundred SSc patients without overt PAH will undergo EDE. Patients with increased PASP and pulmonary vascular resistance at peak stress will undergo exercise right heart catheterization to confirm the diagnosis. They will then be started on endothelin receptor antagonists (ERA) and enter a strict follow-up program. Endothelial progenitor cells and circulating endothelial cells will also be evaluated and correlated to clinical and instrumental data.
Our aim is to demonstrate that EDE may identify patients with PAH at a very early stage, when ERA can be effective to prevent overt PAH.

Start date of activity

20/11/2014

Keywords

systemic sclerosis, pulmonary hypertension, exercise echocardiography

Last update: 04/05/2024