Visa-versa! Breaking Instead of Pushing the Pedals-A
Pulmonary HypertensionEccentric muscle work is defined as lengthening of a muscle while applying force. It was shown that with eccentric work, muscles are able to perform four times as much power compared to usual concentric work, which results in huge training gain with a highly decreased oxygen demand and thus lower cardiovascular load. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic condition associated with significant reduced exercise capacity and increased morbidity and mortality, resulting in reduced quality of life. Physical training has been shown to be beneficial in PH, even in severely limited patients. However, due to cardiopulmonary constraints in PH, training intensities may be very low, so that many patients are physically almost unable to perform exercise on a high enough level to maintain muscle mass. A low body muscle not only feeds the vicious cycle of decreasing exercise capacity, but also has many deleterious metabolic and immunological consequences which further increase disability and decrease quality of life in PH. Thus, eccentric training, which allows to gain muscle mass with a low stress to the cardiopulmonary unit may to be highly beneficial for patients with PH and allied cardiopulmonary disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure. Therefore, the objective of the trial is, to compare differences in oxygen uptake (peak VO2 [l/min]) and other physiological measures during similar cardiopulmonary exercise test protocols of eccentric- vs. concentric cycling in PH- patients and comparators with or without other cardiopulmonary diseases.
Nebulized Magnesium Sulfate and Sildenafil for Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of Newborn
Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of NewbornThe aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of nebulized magnesium sulfate combined with sildenafil citrate, compared with sildenafil citrate alone, in treating neonates with severe persistent pulmonary hypertension on mechanical ventilation.
Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis
Systemic SclerosisDiffuse Sclerosis Systemic2 moreThe purpose of this study is to determine whether a regimen of high-dose immunoablative therapy will demonstrate safety that is consistent or improved with other published regimens in SSc patients, while maintaining a treatment effect.
Effect of Exercise Training in Patients With Pulmonary Hypertension
HypertensionPulmonaryPulmonary Hypertension (PH) is a serious disease with a dismal prognosis when left untreated. Advances in medical therapy have improved survival according to recent registries and systematic reviews, but are associated with high healthcare costs. Earlier studies in Heidelberg, Germany showed good evidence for the effect of exercise training on improving exercise performance, quality of life and pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with pulmonary hypertension. The main objectives of the present project are: to investigate the quality of the implementation of a standardized 3 week in-hospital exercise training program on markers of outcome and disease severity in PH-patients in Switzerland immediately after training and after 3 and 12 month. to look whether training with hyperoxia vs. standard care might be more effective. This is a multicentre, randomized parallel-group trial where the intervention rehabilitation is delayed in one group so that they can serve as standard care controls for the others. In a nested single-centre randomized-controlled trial patent will additionally be randomized to receive either usual rehabilitation (UR) or rehabilitation with standardized supplemental oxygen therapy (SSOT) during nights and ergometer training. Patients will receive a PH specific rehabilitation program during 3 weeks followed by an instructed home-based training program for 12 weeks. Patients who are not already under long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) due to daytime hypoxemia will additionally be randomized to receive standardized supplemental oxygen therapy (SSOT) during training and nights upon written informed consent.
The Prophet Trial -Pilot Study to Assess Safety and Efficacy of a Novel Atrial Flow Regulator (AFR)...
Pulmonary HypertensionThis study aims to investigate safety and efficacy of Occlutech® AFR device in patients with severe pulmonary hypertension (PH).
Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty in Non-operable CTEPH Patients
Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary HypertensionBalloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) emerged as a potential therapeutic option for non-operable patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of BPA in patients disqualified from surgery or suffered from persistent CTEPH despite pulmonary endarterectomy. This is a interventional study analyzing the benefits and the risk of BPA. Clinical evaluation, including: functional capacity, 6-minutes walking test, haemodynamics, biomarkers, cardiopulmonary exercise test, echocardiography, electrocardiography and QoL assessment with Short Form 36 (SF36) questionnaire was performed before the initiation therapy of BPA, and 3-6 months after last session of BPA.
Effects of DHEA in Pulmonary Hypertension
Pulmonary Arterial HypertensionThe goal of this crossover trial is to determine whether the study drug dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) improves right ventricular longitudinal strain measured by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging at 18 weeks compared to placebo and to assess side effects and safety in pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Mono vs. Dual Therapy for Pediatric Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Pediatric Pulmonary HypertensionThe investigators' central hypothesis is that early combination therapy with two PAH-specific oral therapies that have been shown to be well tolerated in the pediatric population, sildenafil and bosentan, will result in better World Health Organization (WHO) functional class at 12 months after initiation of PAH treatment than therapy with sildenafil alone.
Initial Dual Oral Combination Therapy Versus Standard-of-care Initial Oral Monotherapy Prior to...
Thromboembolic Pulmonary HypertensionChronic Disease1 moreChronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is characterised by an obstruction of proximal or more distal pulmonary arteries by residual organized thrombi, combined with a variable microscopic pulmonary vasculopathy (microvasculopathy). Besides lifelong anticoagulation, surgical pulmonary endarterectomy is the treatment of choice in subjects with proximal CTEPH affecting large pulmonary arteries. However, around half of CTEPH subjects are not operated, mainly because of distal lesions inaccessible to surgery. International data have reported survival rates of 88, 79, and 70% at 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively, in subjects with inoperable CTEPH, underscoring the need for better treatment strategies. In those subjects, current guidelines recommend medical therapy with or without balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA). Currently, only one drug (riociguat), targeting the NO pathway, is approved and reimbursed in Europe. Thus, riociguat monotherapy is considered as the standard-of-care treatment for subjects newly diagnosed with inoperable CTEPH. Recently, macitentan, targeting the endothelin-1 pathway, showed to be also effective in subjects with inoperable CTEPH. However, macitentan is currently not approved for CTEPH in Europe. BPA has been also reported to improve hemodynamics, symptoms and exercise capacity. However, complications, including mainly vascular injury, may occur during this procedure and it has been shown that the risk of BPA-related complications was strongly related to the level of pre-BPA mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR). Medical therapy and BPA have in fact complementary effects since they target different lesions. Indeed, BPA targets fibrotic organized thrombi in the segmental arteries down to small pulmonary arteries of 2-5 mm in diameter. Medical therapy, for its part, targets microvasculopathy, similar to that observed in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), in vessels less than 0.5 mm in diameter. Therefore, it is strongly believed that the use of medical therapy prior to BPA may reduce the risk of BPA-related complications by improving pulmonary hemodynamics and may improve global efficacy. In PAH, initial dual oral combination therapy with drugs targeting the NO and endothelin pathways is considered as a standard of care, more efficacious than monotherapy and safe. In contrast, there are no data from controlled trials regarding the efficacy and safety of initial combination therapy regimens versus standard-of-care monotherapy in treatment-naïve subjects with inoperable CTEPH. The investigators hypothesize that initial dual oral combination therapy may be superior to standard-of-care riociguat monotherapy for improving pulmonary hemodynamics prior to BPA and for reducing the risk of BPA-related complications.
Acute Assessment of the Aria CV System in Patients With WHO Groups 2 and 3 Pulmonary Hypertension...
Pulmonary HypertensionThis study is a prospective, non-randomized, two arm, single-center acute feasibility study assessing safety and performance of the Aria CV Acute PH System in WHO Group 2 and 3 PH patients.