Alex Rothman (Sheffield, UK) discusses the TROPHY1 study which looked at the safety and efficacy of ultrasound pulmonary artery denervation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Rothman says that best medical therapy provides benefits but that “patients continue to have symptoms”.
The study not only looked at the safety of the procedure, which Rothman says was “very good”, but also the effects on blood pressure and the resistance to flow within the lungs or blood vessels supplying the lungs. In the study, those numbers “were improved” and “the pressures in the lungs reduced”.
It also looked at patients’ activity and found that patients were able to walk 42 metres further following the procedure. According to Rothman, “as well as reducing the blood pressure, which is something they might not necessarily feel themselves, we are able to show there is an improvement in what they were actually able to do”.
