Promising therapeutic effects of sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate towards pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients.

BACKGROUND Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a lethal disease with no cure currently available. Sodium Tanshinone IIA sulfonate (STS) is a water-soluble derivative of tanshinone IIA isolated as the major active component from salvia miltiorrhiza, a kind of Chinese herbal medicine. We investigate the efficacy of STS towards treatment of PH patients. METHODS AND RESULTS Five hospitalized patients were randomly enrolled for this study. These patients were suffering from various types of serious PH without getting sufficient benefits from sildenafil treatment (20 mg tid) for at least three months. The efficacy of STS on PH was evaluated by measuring the pulmonary arterial systolic pressure (PASP), RV size by echocardiography, 6-minute walking distance (6MWD), Borg dyspnea score, and WHO functional class of PH. Patients aged from 17 to 46 (average 33±11) years old, pulmonary arterial systolic pressure (PASP) ranged from 60 to 140 mmHg, RV size ranged from 25 to 39 mm were included in study. At the endpoint of observation for 8 weeks of STS infusion, they obtained reduction of PASP in the range of 14-45 (average 28.6±12.5) mmHg, RV size in the range of 0-10 (average 4.2±1.6). All patients exhibited improved exercise capacity with an increase of 6MWD from 63 to 268 (average 138.4±40.7) meters, significantly reduced Borg dyspnea score from maximum 9 down to 1 or 0, and reduced WHO functional class of PH from III or IV down to II. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that STS exhibits remarkable beneficiary effects on treating PH patients either alone or in concert with sildenafil.