Insights into etiological factors of pulmonary hypertension in cancer patients

Abstract

Pulmonary hypertension is a rare vascular disease that can affect patients with or surviving malignancy resulting in significant morbidity and high mortality. Malignant diseases can lead to elevated pulmonary artery pressure through different mechanisms, either directly by structural obstruction of pulmonary vessels or indirectly through hypercoagulable state or treatment toxicity culminating in high pulmonary vascular resistance. The most common causes of cancer-related pulmonary hypertension are thromboembolic diseases, tumour emboli and treatment toxicity and less commonly intravascular tumours and malignant extrinsic compression.