Medical and interventional therapies for inoperable CTEPH: a necessary combination?

Abstract

Surgical pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) is a potential cure for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), a rare pulmonary vascular disease, but the procedure requires a high level of skill and roughly half of patients remain surgically untreatable. In The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, the RACE study by Xavier Jaïs and colleagues1 and the MR BPA study by Takashi Kawakami and colleagues2 compare the efficacy and safety of balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) with those of the soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat in patients with inoperable CTEPH.