The Pulmonary Hypertension Type

The cartoon from medcomic.com shows the illustration about pulmonary hypertension.

From previous article (what-does-hypertension-mean?), we know two types of hypertension, they are “pulmonary artery (pulmonary hypertension) and in aorta (arterial/systemic hypertension).”

Pulmonary hypertension is less common. 

This kind of hypertension is caused by high blood pressure in the lung. The blood vessel in the lung become stiff, narrow, damage, so that the right side of the heart (the part of heart that pump blood to the lung) hardly to pump the blood into lung. This problem is often misunderstood disease. 

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are the most common causes the pulmonary hypertension. 

The signs normally enlargement of veins on the side of the neck, irregular heart sounds and swelling in the abdomen, legs, or feet.

Both asthma and COPD are serious health problem, asthma is problem for 300 million people worldwide. The COPD could further cause morbidity and mortality. 

Both are different diseases but have similarities in term of pathophysiologic characteristics. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) categorized five groups of pulmonary hypertension (please see above Figure).  

They are: pulmonary arterial hypertension, pulmonary hypertension of heart diseases, pulmonary hypertension of lung diseases, pulmonary hypertension of chronic thromboembolism and  pulmonary hypertension of unclear multifactorial mechanism.