Research - Unit of Pulmonary hypertension
Pulmonary Hypertension research has two different aspects, the clinical one, based on clinical trials in which new, more effective and less toxic drugs are investigated, and the basic and translational one, which is carried out in the laboratory and, in our case, allows us to identify new ways of signalling the development of PH that may be more appropriate therapeutic targets. In this sense, we not only work at the laboratory level with animal and cellular models, but also with patient and tissue samples when the patient undergoes lung transplantation. This basic and translational research is carried out at IDIBAPS, in Area 2 - Respiratory, cardiovascular and renal biopathology and bioengineering - in the group led by Dr Blanco entitled, ‘Translational research in pulmonary vascular diseases: cell proliferation and apoptotic mechanisms in pulmonary arterial hypertension’.
We have two basic facilities—patient registries and biological samples—which are already in place and which contribute to facilitating research activity by providing epidemiological and clinical information or biological samples. We participate in the REHAP, which is the Spanish pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) registry that allows us to analyse the epidemiology of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) in Spain and how it evolves over the years. Furthermore, REHAP provides a real and updated view of the therapeutic management of PAH and CTEPH in our country and the results in the short and medium term, both in terms of survival and clinical changes. We are one of the centres with the highest volume of cases. At the same time, we have created the HP Biobank with blood from patients with PAH or CTEPH, with clinical data associated with the REHAP registry.
In addition, as a reference centre we participate in phase 2 and phase 3, multicentre, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials of new drugs for the treatment of patients with PAH and CTEPH.
The Pulmonary Hypertension Unit of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona is the one that carries out the most research activity in Spain.