Pulmonary hypertension pathophysiology

Overview

There are different types and causes of pulmonary hypertension, however most of them share the same pathophysiology: An initiating factor leads to increased resistance in the pulmonary vasculature. As a consequence, the right ventricle adapts by increasing right ventricular systolic pressures to preserve the cardiac output from the right heart. With time, increasing right ventricular systolic pressures will subsequently result in chronic changes in the pulmonary circulation and progressive remodeling of the vessel walls further exacerbating the pulmonary hypertension.