Pulmonary Hypertension

About Pulmonary Hypertension
Pulmonary Hypertension (PH)  is a disease of high blood pressure in your pulmonary artery. This is the large artery that leaves the heart and goes to your lungs. This is not the same as essential hypertension or high blood pressure in the rest of your body  that you measure in the doctor’s office on your arm. Normal blood pressure in your arm is about 120/80 mmHg.  Normal blood pressure in your pulmonary artery is about 25/15 mmHg or less.

Special diagnostic devices are used to measure pulmonary artery pressure (PAP). A mean PAP greater than 20 mmHg is considered pulmonary hypertension.

There are a variety of current medications used to bring down the pulmonary pressure and improve symptoms, survival, and activity levels.

Our Research
Ronald Oudiz, M.D. leads our research into Pulmonary Hypertension at the Respiratory Research Center.  Dr. Oudiz has 30 years experience conducting clinical trials for investigative medications and delivery devices for the treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension. Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise testing (CPET) is used to assess the response to therapeutic interventions, both clinically and in research trials of various new pharmaceutical agents.

Qualified research participants will receive financial compensation for their time and travel, study-related medical evaluations, and the investigative study medication at no cost. Help advance medicine and medical research through participating in one of our clinical trials.

Other Resources

Learn more about Pulmonary Hypertension and the current research

Respiratory Research Center

Our Research Contributions

  • 30 year history of clinical trials in Pulmonary Hypertension therapy
  • Assessed the relative effectiveness of one, two, and three drug therapies
  • Highlighted the use of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in Pulmonary Hypertension clinical trials

More of Our Research Specialties

  • Exercise Training and Rehabilitation

    Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a supervised medical program that helps people who have lung diseases live and breathe better.

  • Muscle Weakness

    There are many reasons why individuals may lose strength, but in many patients with chronic heart, lung or kidney diseases the loss of muscle mass and strength is faster than normal.

  • Asthma

    Asthma is a condition in which your airways narrow and swell and may produce extra mucus. This can make breathing difficult and trigger coughing, a whistling sound (wheezing)

  • Unexplained Dyspnea & Exercise Intolerance

    Shortness-of-breath, or Dyspnea, is a common symptom that causes exercise limitation or “intolerance”. Breathlessness during exercise is often