What are the symptoms of pulmonary hypertension?

Pulmonary hypertension is actually a similar disease to hypertension. There are many causes of pulmonary hypertension, such as thrombosis, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, etc. Pulmonary hypertension can also cause a lot of discomfort to patients, such as palpitations, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, etc. Because the lungs are a relatively important organ in the respiratory system, once lung disease occurs, it will have a greater impact on breathing.

What are the symptoms of pulmonary hypertension?

Like hypertension, pulmonary hypertension has no characteristic manifestations and can be easily overlooked or misdiagnosed. Its common manifestations are shown in the figure below. In addition, from the above classification of pulmonary hypertension, it can be seen that pulmonary hypertension may be related to many diseases. Patients with the above causes, such as lung disease, rheumatic autoimmune disease, thrombosis, and left heart system disease, in addition to the manifestations of the disease itself, have symptoms such as difficulty breathing and shortness of breath after activities, palpitations and chest tightness, cyanosis of the lips, syncope or fatigue, and even chest pain and coughing up blood. They should go to the hospital for an echocardiogram.

Causes and classification of pulmonary hypertension:

There are many causes of pulmonary hypertension. According to its causes, pulmonary hypertension is divided into the following five categories (based on the recommendations of the 2014 Fifth World Symposium on Pulmonary Hypertension and the American College of Chest Physicians). The first category is pulmonary arterial hypertension, and the remaining four categories are pulmonary hypertension.

Type I pulmonary hypertension: idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, hereditary pulmonary hypertension or pulmonary arteriolar disease-related pulmonary hypertension, such as connective tissue disease, HIV infection, portal hypertension, congenital heart disease, schistosomiasis and the use of certain drugs;

Category II PH: Chronic left heart disease secondary to the presence of left atrial and pulmonary venous hypertension, including systolic dysfunction, diastolic dysfunction, and valvular heart disease;

Category III pulmonary hypertension: secondary to hypoxemia caused by various reasons, including: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, interstitial lung disease, other restrictive and obstructive lung diseases, sleep apnea or alveolar ventilation dysfunction, etc.

Category IV PH: PH caused by proximal or distal pulmonary vascular thromboembolism (eg, chronic thrombotic disease). Category V PH: Pulmonary hypertension of unknown cause or with multiple pathogenic mechanisms involved, including blood system diseases (such as myelodysplasia and chronic hemolytic anemia), systemic diseases (such as sarcoidosis), metabolic abnormalities (e.g. glycogen storage disease) and other causes.