First PH Treatment Offered Second Chance at Life
J
eannette Morrill initially thought she would never do anything useful or meaningful after her pulmonary hypertension (PH) diagnosis in 1976. Then 23, she was told she had six months to live. Doctors told her parents to make her as comfortable as possible. But Jeannette wanted to make the most of the time she had left. “I decided that I would make sure I did something every day,” she recalls. “It didn’t matter how I was feeling. Even on my worst days, I would at least make sure I got up, got dressed and got out of my bed.” In 1987, she and her husband David adopted two sons, Brian and Ian. She found a doctor who told her, “If you are willing to try, I will do everything I can to help you survive until, perhaps, some new medication, comes along.” In 1995, a medication did come along. The Food and Drug Administration approved Flolan, or epoprostenol. It has transformed Jeannette’s life
and the lives of thousands of other people with PH since then. “It was a complete game changer,” says Murali Chakinala, M.D, chair of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association’s Scientific Leadership Council. “It provided the first real hope that PH patients had.” Targeted therapy Targeted therapy Before Flolan, there was no targeted therapy for PH. Physicians prescribed vasodilators, blood pressure medication and other drugs that worked on arteries throughout the whole body, rather than arteries in just the lungs. For many patients, a lung transplant was their only hope. Flolan was different. Administered through a catheter placed surgically into a large vein in the chest, it targets arteries in the lungs. It relaxes and dilates narrowed blood vessels, increasing blood supply to the lungs and reducing the workload of the heart. A small battery-powered pump keeps the medication flowing continuously into the body. “People literally were able to get out of bed and start living again,” Dr. Chakinala says. No longer longer couch-bound No couch-bound In 1992-93, JoAnn Volpe was the head secretary of a Connecticut high school. At 44, she had no energy. She huffed and puffed going to and from the parking lot. She passed out trying to shower. Her daughter worried so much about her that she didn’t want to go away to college. Eventually, JoAnn was diagnosed with PH and had to leave the job she loved. “I think they thought I was going to drop dead on their premises,” she says.
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PATHLIGHT // ISSUE 4
