The results shows that adding inhaled iloprost to treatment with bosentan increases exercise capability, reduces clinical deterioration and, in some cases, improves diagnostic functional class by one stage.
Every patient who received the combined therapy increased their six-minute walk distance by more than 98 feet. In addition, 11 climbed from functional class III to class II on the New York Heart Association PAH classification list, which measures how severely patients are limited by their disease. None of the patients in the combined treatment group experienced clinical deterioration by the end of the 12-week study.
Bosentan helps to increase blood flow in the lungs and is often used for initial therapy due to its ease of administration. However, for patients who remain impaired on single drug treatment, Dr Vallerie McLaughlin of the University of Michigan Medical Center calls the addition of inhaled iloprost is a “potentially attractive clinical option.”
Since inhaled iloprost therapy requires administration approximately six times per day, the researchers acknowledged that some patients could find this regimen inconvenient and expensive, given the additional cost of combining drugs.
Pulmonary hypertension is a debilitating and potentially fatal disease characterized by the progressive narrowing of blood vessels in the lungs. The disease has no known cause and is difficult to diagnose.