Biomarker for the diagnosis of Pulmunary Hypertension (PH)
Establishment of a well performing biomarker pattern for the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH) from blood plasma.
Background
Pulmonary hypertension is a life-threatening chronic disorder of the pulmonary circulation. If left untreated, 50% of patients die within 2.8 years after receiving their diagnosis. This makes early diagnosis and treatment critical as it significantly decreases mortality and morbidity in patients with PH.
Clinical Need
Prognosis of PH is poor and both diagnosing and treating patients is challenging. The gold standard for diagnosing PH is right-sided heart catheterization, however this is an invasive procedure. Reliable, validated biomarkers would have the advantage as they can be assessed using samples acquired from a simple blood draw.
Biomarkers that specifically indicate the disease, the disease stage and the treatment response to specific therapies would be an ideal set of tools used while optimizing the management of PH patients. In addition, monitoring PH via biomarkers would be important to better define the urgency for lung transplantation in patients with a disease that is refractory to any treatment.
Our Solution
We studied blood samples of a small, but well-defined cohort of patients diagnosed with severe PH using our high-resolution mass spectrometry based metabolomics platform.
Thanks to efficient interdisciplinary, cross-company cooperation we developed a highly specific, reliable blood-based biomarker pattern for diagnosing PH. The preliminary results and novel biomarker signatures have been validated in three follow-up studies.
Effects and Benefits
Blood based biomarkers for the diagnosis of PH are less invasive, more cost-efficient and patient-friendly than current standard right-sided heart catheterization.