Finding ways of testing new drugs for pulmonary hypertension

Assessment of pulmonary vascular remodelling and right ventricular hypertrophy using Arg-Gly-Asp radioligand positron emission tomography

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries carrying blood to the lungs, causing damage to the right side of the heart and heart failure. It is caused by an overgrowth of cells in the blood vessels of the lungs. New drugs are being developed to reduce this abnormal growth, but assessing whether these drugs work in patients is a challenge as it is currently difficult to monitor changes in these cells. The BHF have awarded a grant to Dr Lan Zhao from Imperial College London to find out if a new imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET), combined with a low level radioactive molecule called RGD that is taken up by growing cells, could help. After giving it to a person, the amount of RGD-radioactivity measured in the lung would indicate how many abnormal cells are present. They will first test this new method in rats, before testing it in people with PAH. This technique could then be used to measure how effective a new drug treatment is at reducing the growth of cells that cause PAH. It may be used to help develop better treatments and to monitor PAH patients in the future.