How many years can one live with pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension is actually a malignant disease that poses a great threat to life. If it is not treated effectively and correctly, the patient is likely to die from difficult-to-correct right heart failure, and the average survival rate is only two to three years.

1. Pulmonary hypertension can be divided into several categories: idiopathic, familial, caused by related diseases, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, and caused by pulmonary vein or capillary lesions. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is an extremely malignant disease. Its natural course often leads to worsening of the patient's condition due to delayed diagnosis. Without correct treatment, the patient will soon die from difficult-to-correct right heart failure. The average survival time is 2 to 3 years, and the incidence rate is increasing year by year both at home and abroad.

2. There is currently no specific rehabilitation method for pulmonary arterial hypertension. The goals of treatment are to improve the patient's symptoms and quality of life, halt disease progression, and, if possible, induce disease reversal. Traditional treatment options include anticoagulation, oxygen inhalation, cardiotonic drugs, diuretics, and calcium channel blockers, but their efficacy is limited. Moreover, although calcium ion blockers are widely used in China, their use is not standardized and there is a lack of results from acute vasodilation tests as a basis. Currently, less than 10% of patients with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension are sensitive to calcium ion blockers. Endothelin receptor antagonists, prostacyclin and phosphodiesterase inhibitors have been widely used internationally to effectively treat this disease, but these drugs are expensive and it is difficult for Chinese patients to afford the cost themselves.

3. The mortality rate of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension is high, and the survival time of patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension after diagnosis is 2.8 years. Seventy-five percent of patients die within 5 years of diagnosis, and the average survival time after the onset of symptoms is 1.9 years; for those with symptoms of right heart failure, the average survival time is less than 1 year. Timely early diagnosis and treatment can stabilize the condition of 20% of patients or even cure them. Once scleroderma patients develop pulmonary hypertension, if it is not controlled, most patients will die within a year.

4. Among patients with pulmonary hypertension, 60% present dyspnea as the main complaint, and during examination, 98% of patients experience shortness of breath after activity. If clinical physicians notice that patients have unexplained shortness of breath, and chest X-rays show right ventricular hypertrophy and prominent pulmonary artery segments that cannot be explained by common diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease, and coronary heart disease, they should consider the possibility of this disease, actively perform echocardiography, cardiac catheterization and other examinations to measure pulmonary artery pressure, and perform relevant series of examinations to strive for early diagnosis and early treatment.