Saudi Guidelines on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension: Pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with connective tissue diseases

The explosive growth of medical literature on pulmonary hypertension (PH) has led to a steady increase in awareness of this disease within the medical community during the past decade. The recent revision of the classification of PH is presented in in the main guidelines. Group 1 PH or pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a heterogeneous group and includes PH due to inheritable, drug-induced, and toxin-induced causes and to such underlying systemic causes as connective tissue diseases, human immunodeficiency viral infection, portal hypertension, congenital heart disease, and schistosomiasis. Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune multisystem disorder, which affects over 240 persons per million in the United States.[1] Its manifestations are not confined to the skin but may also involve the lungs, kidneys, peripheral circulation, musculoskeletal system, gastrointestinal tract, and heart. The outcome of PAH associated with SSc is worse when compared to other subtypes of PAH. In this review, we summarize available information about the pulmonary vascular and cardiac manifestations of SSc with special emphasis on their prognostic implications as well as the peculiarity of their detection.