Presented at PVRI's Drug Discovery & Development Symposium 2025, by Luke Howard, Imperial College London

Telehealth utilization increased during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which encouraged remote patient management. The identification of optimal strategies to enhance telehealth and address barriers to its use for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) may improve patient outcomes. 

In this Community Call, we discussed:

• Epicardial adipose tissue as an independent risk factor for mortality in pulmonary arterial hypertension
• Morbidity and mortality associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension in a schistosomiasis‐endemic region of Brazil

When performing cardiac catheterization in pediatric outpatients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PH), our approach is to allow spontaneous ventilation, minimize procedural length, and evaluate for same-day discharge whenever safe and feasible. We describe our experience with this approach and identify clinical characteristics that influenced procedural safety. 

Lung vasculature arises from both pulmonary and systemic (bronchial) circulations. Remodeling and structural changes in lung vasculature have been recognized in end-stage fibrotic lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) but have not been well characterized. 

Overweight and obesity have emerged as modifiable risk factors for right ventricular (RV) phenotypic changes, but their genetic relationship remains unclear. This study examined RV phenotypes using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in European participants from the UK Biobank without overt heart disease.