PITTSBURGH -- A medical exclusive from Channel 4 Action News: a simple blood test offers new hope for patients with pulmonary hypertension.

Researchers at Allegheny General Hospital discovered the test gives them an easy way to track the progression of the deadly disease.

There is no cure for pulmonary hypertension. Early and timely treatment is critical for anyone diagnosed with this condition. When doctors know what to do and when to do it, patients are better off and this is what the new blood test offers.

Frank Chembers' life is one long, tough pull, with tons of tests that couldn't explain his troubled breathing.

"Dr. Shaver was there and he did a heart catheterization with a pressure test. And that's when they found it," Chembers said.

Chembers has pulmonary hypertension. It's a progressive, ultimately fatal condition, in which high blood pressure in the arteries inside the lungs leads to congestive heart failure.

"I'm up here about every four months, every three months, and they do six-minute walking tests and they compare the tests," said Chembers.

Some patients like Chembers do well on medication. Others quickly deteriorate. And some others don't respond well at all. The challenge for doctors is how to decide when they need new or stronger treatments, or a lung transplant.

"What we don't want to do is wait for the illness to get so severe, then the results of these aggressive treatments are not as good," said Dr. Srinivas Murali of the McGinnis Cardiovascular Institute.

Thanks to a simple blood test, doctors no longer have to wait. Researchers at Allegheny General Hospital found that certain proteins and enzymes are elevated in patients with pulmonary hypertension -- the more severe the disease, the higher those levels. For the first time, a blood test can determine who does or doesn't have pulmonary hypertension, its severity and the disease's progression.

"Perhaps that will help us come up with treatment strategies and apply them, before the problem gets out of hand," Murali said.

Compared to other people who have this I am blessed," Chembers said.

Researchers said more extensive research is needed to determine the ultimate efficacy of the blood test. Only 4,000 people have primary pulmonary arterial hypertension. But it can be caused by high blood pressure, heart failure and other diseases which raises the number of patients into the hundreds of thousands.

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