September 27, 2002European Respiratory Journal
The new clinical trials on pharmacological treatment in pulmonary arterial hypertension
Why the study?
Do new pharmacological treatments (terbogrel, treprostinil, beraprost, iloprost, bosentan) improve exercise capacity in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension?
Population
>1,100 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension
Design
Review
Authors
Discussion
Loading...
Member takes
Implication
May enhance exercise capacity in PAH; leaves open mortality benefit and requires dedicated outcome trials.
Structured PICO
Do new pharmacological treatments (terbogrel, treprostinil, beraprost, iloprost, bosentan) improve exercise capacity in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension?
P
Population
>1,100 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension
I
Intervention
Thromboxane inhibitor terbogrel, prostacyclin analogues treprostinil, beraprost and iloprost, and endothelin receptor antagonist bosentan
O
Outcome
Exercise capacity assessed by the 6-min walk testsurrogate
New pharmacological agents for pulmonary arterial hypertension, including prostacyclin analogues and endothelin receptor antagonists, improve exercise capacity but have not yet demonstrated a mortality benefit.
Limitations
- No trials have shown effects on mortality, as the study protocols were not designed for assessing this end-point
- Each new compound presents side-effects that are unpredictable in the individual patient
Cite This Study
Galiè et al. (2002) studied this question.