Tratamiento farmacológico actual de la hipertensión arterial pulmonar / Pharmacological treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension

ABSTRACT

Until recent years, pulmonary arterial hypertension was considered as an untreatable disease. However, with the better knowledge in its pathobiology, new drugs have been developed. These new drugs can be divided in three main groups 1. Prostacyclin analogs (Epoprostenol, iloprost, treprostinil); 2. Endothelin antagonists (Bosentan, sitaxsentan); and 3. Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (Sildenafil). Numerous studies have evaluated the safety and efficacy of these drugs, showing significant improvement in exercise capacity, quality of life and time to worsening. Some of them have even showed a better survival when compared with conventional treatment. Despite these advances, pulmonary arterial hypertension remains an incurable disease, so the focus of new studies is the combination of two or more drugs with a different mechanism of action.