REVIEW ARTICLE
Hypoxic Pulmonary Vasoconstriction in Humans: Tale or Myth
A. Hussain1, *, M.S. Suleiman2, S.J. George2, M. Loubani1, A. Morice3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 1
Last Page: 13
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-11-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401711010001
Article History:
Received Date: 13/10/2016Revision Received Date: 02/12/2016
Acceptance Date: 09/12/2016
Electronic publication date: 24/01/2017
Collection year: 2017

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Hypoxic Pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) describes the physiological adaptive process of lungs to preserves systemic oxygenation. It has clinical implications in the development of pulmonary hypertension which impacts on outcomes of patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery. This review examines both acute and chronic hypoxic vasoconstriction focusing on the distinct clinical implications and highlights the role of calcium and mitochondria in acute versus the role of reactive oxygen species and Rho GTPases in chronic HPV. Furthermore it identifies gaps of knowledge and need for further research in humans to clearly define this phenomenon and the underlying mechanism.