Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine

Evaluating your lung health starts with an expert diagnosis

Pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs), left untreated, can have serious consequences. The first step to successfully treating the disorder is an expert diagnosis. As a result, the experienced doctors at the Tufts Medical Center Pulmonary Hypertension Center in downtown Boston carefully and thoroughly evaluate your overall lung health and your symptoms.

We begin by using a range of noninvasive tests, including chest x-rays, pulmonary function tests, echocardiograms, sleep studies, CT scanning and CT angiograms, ventilation/perfusion scanning and comprehensive blood testing. After testing, we perform a right heart catheterization in our state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization laboratory, which provides even more in-depth information to definitively diagnose your pulmonary hypertension.

Bringing together the right specialists

Next, our team works together to create a treatment plan that takes your individual needs into account. Because pulmonary hypertension is often the result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery disease or other conditions, we take a multidisciplinary approach (drawing on experts from multiple specialties) to treat you, collaborating with colleagues in cardiology, rheumatology and other clinical disciplines.

Depending on the type of pulmonary hypertension we diagnose you with, we may recommend oral medications, inhaled medications or intravenous infusions. Additionally, you may have access to new and experimental therapies not available elsewhere through clinical studies we run periodically.

Leaders in improving the treatment of pulmonary hypertension

Our director, Nicholas Hill, MD, and Co-Director, Ioana Preston, MD, are nationally recognized experts in the evaluation and treatment of pulmonary hypertension. Both have participated in numerous clinical trials that established the efficacy of breakthrough therapies such as epoprostenol (Flolan), bosentan (Tracleer), ambrisentan (Letairis), sildenafil (Revatio), tadalafil (Adcirca), and treprostinil (Remodulin).

Dr. Hill has received the Distinguished Scholar Award in Critical Care Medicine from the American College of Chest Physicians and was honored with the 2009 Pulmonary Hypertension Association Award of Excellence in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Care. .