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A combination therapy of two drugs - inhaled iloprost and bosentan - appears to improve the condition of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a debilitating and potentially fatal disease characterized by a progressive narrowing of blood vessels in the lungs.

Dr. Vallerie V. McLaughlin, of the University of Michigan Medical Center, and nine colleagues studied 65 PAH patients who were being treated with bosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist that helps boost blood flow in the lungs.

Of those patients, 32 were selected to receive inhaled iloprost (a prostacyclin analog) along with bosentan, while the remainder took a placebo and bosentan...

The original article can be found at: http://www.healthcentral.com/heart-disease/news-26013-31.html

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what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

One has to ask if being able to walk 98 feet further during a six-minute walk test represents a significant improvement? This very short report would have benefited from some sense of how patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) typically do -even though it says they 'grow worse over time' and whether there are adverse effects of the treatment. One sentence telling us if it is available and what it costs would have fit into a short story of this length.

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