Reported by Sue Porter
March 20, 2008
The Mid-South Area Pulmonary Hypertension Support Group led by Barbara Thompson met on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at Logan’s Roadhouse on N. Germantown Parkway. The meeting was sponsored and attended by Natalia Kelly with Lung Rx and Robert Posadas with United Therapeutics. Also in attendance were Barbara Hockaday, Joe Whitman and Judy Corzine of drug distributors, Accredo, who supplied the door prize.
After “meetin’ ‘n minglin’”, Barbara opened with some announcements concerning the Pulmonary Hypertension Association International Conference (A Journey of Hope and Discovery) in Houston, TX on June 20-22, 2008. She also told that Kirsten Larson, who has pulmonary hypertension, would be a guest on the Montel Williams’ show on Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Kirsten was featured on a recent episode of Mystery Diagnosis on the Discovery Health channel.
Judy Corzine invited us to the First Annual PHun Walk & Silent Auction that will be held at River Park in Brentwood, TN by the Middle Tennessee PH Support Group May 3, 2008 from 9 a.m. until Noon. More information can be obtained by emailing Racheal at mablseal@bellsouth.net or by calling her at (615) 216-5910.
Approximately, twenty-five people were in attendance to hear the guest speaker, Majid Mughal, M.D. and Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center from the University of South Alabama in Mobile. Dr. Mughal discussed how PH is defined and classified and of the revisions on the diagnosis and management of the disease by a multidisciplinary panel of experts in 2003. Efforts that are being made to formulate guidelines for the management and treatment of this complex condition were also described. Dr. Mughal spoke of how etiology determines the treatment and also determines survival rate. There was discussion of the series of tests used to establish a diagnosis. Dr. Mughal described the tremendous progress that has been made beginning in the 1980s when there was no treatment to the 1990s when Flolan became available with the 2000s bringing Tracleer, Remodulin, Ventavis, Revatio, and Letairis. Now, a combination of drugs are being used with patients surviving longer and actually reversing disease progress. Currently, physicians have different agents available for individualized reactions and utilizing individual treatment goals. Dr. Mughal told of recent advances involving experimental drugs showing promising results and answered questions from Support Group members. He also announced that the UT Medical Center has expressed interest in establishing a much needed PH Center located in Memphis. (Information related to Dr. Mughal’s presentation can be found in CHEST, the official publication of the American College of Chest Physicians, June, 2007, pages 1917-1928. It can be found online at http://chestjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/6/1917
The next Mid-South Area PH Support Group meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. It will be held at Logan’s Roadhouse located at 2710 N. Germantown Parkway in Memphis, TN. The guest speaker will be a Nurse Practitioner from Stern Cardiovascular. Actelion will sponsor the meeting.
For more information on PH, the support group or to make a reservation to attend the next meeting, contact Barbara Thompson at BarbaraInMemphis@aol.com or (901) 251-1023.
