Role of hemodynamics in pulmonary vascular remodeling - Implications for primary pulmonary hypertension

Both human pathologic studies and animal models have a role in PPH research. PPH research is at a level of sophistication similar to research on atherosclerosis, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease many years ago. Researchers recognized then that to understand a disease we must study the disease: sophisticated descriptive studies of those diseases performed years ago prompted the questions today being addressed with animal models or cell culture studies. Thus, animal models can have an important function in PPH depending on the appropriateness of that model for the question being asked. Our current understanding of the role of hemodynamics in pulmonary vascular remodeling illustrates the utility of that approach.