Abstract

Prastacyclins have played a prominent role in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). To evaluate the efficacy and safety of prostacyclins therapy in PAH, a search was performed in PubMed, OVID and EMBASE to identify relevant articles randomized controlled trials and a meta-analysis was conducted. Ten documents (including 1261 patients) accorded to the demand of enrollment. Compared with placebo treatment, prostacyclins can improve exercise capacity, cardiac function and clinical symptoms, decrease mean pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance, and may not be able to reduce the mortality of severe PAH patients in short-term. Generally, PAH patients can tolerate headache, injection site pain and other side effects.

Key words: Prostacyclin, pulmonary arterial hypertension, meta-analysis.