Milan Luknár, Peter Lesný, Marta Hájková, Dagmar Kučerová, Eva Goncalvesová
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is characterized by an increase of mean blood pressure in the pulmonary artery. One of the groups of PH, pulmonary arterial hypertension, is a rare progressing disease. Patients die of right heart failure. New drugs have been introduced in the clinical practice favourably influencing the course of the disease. Diagnosis requires a complex approach. Right-sided cardiac catheterization plays a key role. Further tests determine the character of PH, exclude important pulmonary disease, identify associated disorders, and are of prognostic importance. We are presenting a case of a patient with dyspnea as her cardinal symptom. Subjective complaints, objective findings, and results of initial examinations initially indicated pulmonary disease but a subsequent complex diagnostic process confirmed idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. Specific PH treatment improved the patient’s status in the long term.