New drug treats pulmonary hypertension

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A clinical trials shows that an oral drug, bosentan, can improve survival in patients who have pulmonary arterial hypertension.
It is only recently that there has been any treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a condition where the blood pressure in the lungs goes up causing breathlessness, fatigue and increasing disability. Half of all patients die within two years if they go untreated.

Now there is a new drug for pulmonary hypertension - the first in pill form - called bosentan. In a trial reported by researchers at the University of Michigan, bosentan has been found to improve survival among those with PAH. Survival in treated patients was 96 per cent at one year and 89 per cent at two years. On past clinical experience, these survival rates would have been put at 67 per cent and 58 per cent. After two years follow up, 70 per cent of patients were coping on bosentan alone. This adds to earlier, more short-term, work that shows that bosentan improves patient's walking ability and quality of life.

Source
European Respiratory Journal February 2005

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