Patient Care
- Consultation and coordination with referring physicians
- Preparing for your appointment
- Diagnostic Evaluations
- FDA Approved Treatments for Pulmonary Hypertension
- Patient Care Resources
Pulmonary vascular disease is a complex and increasingly diagnosed disease state. In pulmonary hypertension, the blood pressure in the pulmonary (lung) arteries is abnormally high. The arteries resist the pressure and react by narrowing, thus causing right side of the heart to become enlarged due to the increased workload of pumping blood against this resistance.
Primary pulmonary hypertension is a disease of the pulmonary circulation, predominantly affecting young adults. Secondary causes of pulmonary hypertension are very common and include such diverse entities as congenital heart disease, connective tissue diseases, pulmonary fibrosis, emphysema and liver disease. Fifteen years ago pulmonary hypertension was a uniformly progressive and fatal disease and while exciting new treatments have been developed since then, pulmonary hypertension remains a life threatening illness without a known cure. The Vera Moulton Wall Center is one of the only centers in the western United States offering services to both children and adults with pulmonary hypertension.
The Wall Center provides comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic services to patients with all forms of pulmonary hypertension. Care is provided by a team of experts in pulmonary hypertension, including physicians, clinical nurse specialists, pharmacists, and social workers. The Center brings together adult and pediatric specialists in cardiology, pulmonary medicine, cardiovascular surgery, vascular biology, and other disciplines. The Center also works closely with the Stanford Lung/Heart-Lung Transplantation program to offer patients the full range of treatment options.
Affiliated Programs
Stanford Heart Center
Children’s Heart Center
Cardiovascular Surgery
Lung/Heart-Lung Transplantation
Pulmonary Medicine
Linking clinical research and state-of-the-art treatment, Stanford is internationally recognized for excellence in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiopulmonary disease. The first heart-lung transplant in the world was performed at Stanford in a patient with pulmonary hypertension. Since then, cardiologists and pulmonologists at Stanford have been at the forefront of new developments in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension and in evaluating new pharmacologic agents which offer potentially promising therapeutic benefits. Working in conjunction with the lung and heart-lung transplant program, clinical trials are being conducted, using agents that may function as a bridge to transplantation, or as palliative therapy for patients with severe end-stage pulmonary hypertension who are not appropriate transplant candidates.
