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Pulmonary Hypertension

My mother`s heart

05/24/2006

Question:

my mother has been told she has ph on top of diabeties kidney dysfunction she is 65 and im wondering how long i have with her? please help answer my question

Answer:

Namita Sood, MD, FCCP

Pulmonary hypertension is high pressures in the vessels in the lung. This can result from many different conditions including stiffness or weakness of the heart that may result from longstanding diabetes and high blood pressure. How much this affects her survival is based on how high the pressures, what the causes for these height pressures are, and how well her heart is pumping.

Philip Hall, MD

Most nephrologists use the serum level of creatinine to make the best guess possible. If creatinine levels have been steady for the past 2 to 3 years this would suggest that kidney function is not deteriorating very rapidly. If the level is at 1, kidney function is very good. If it is at 2, the best guess is that there is about 1/2 the kidney function, which is quite sufficient to to support life with careful frequent medical checkups to keep things going. It the serum creatinine is at 4 or above but been steady there, careful continuous medical monitoring will be helpful but it is not possible to predict how long a life your mother has remaining.

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Response by:

Namita Sood, MD, FCCP Namita Sood, MD, FCCP
Associate Professor of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University

Philip W Hall, 3rd, MD Philip W Hall, 3rd, MD
Formerly, Professor Emeritus of Medicine
School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University