Right Ventricle in Pulmonary Hypertension

During heart development chamber specification is controlled and directed by a number of genes and a fetal heart gene expression pattern is revisited during heart failure (39). In the setting of chronic pulmonary hypertension the right ventricle undergoes hypertrophy, which is likely initially adaptive, but often followed by decompensation, dilatation and failure. Here we discuss differences between the right ventricle and the left ventricle of the heart and begin to describe the cellular and molecular changes which characterize right heart failure. A prevention and treatment of right ventricle failure becomes a treatment goal for patients with severe pulmonary hypertension it follows that we need to understand the pathobiology of right heart hypertrophy and the transition to right heart failure. (C) 2011 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 1:525-540, 2011.