Abu Dhabi -- The Zayed Military Hospital (ZMH) has inaugurated a unit for the treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) disease, which is considered the first treatment unit in the country.

This comes under the continuous support of General H.H Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and the direct follow-up of General Command of the Armed Forces.

The unit operates under the supervision of skilled Physicians, Nurses, Technicians and Specialists in this rare disease.

The other military medical units' usually referred patients with this disease to ZMH, that contributed to start the treatment of these cases, besides other services offered by the new unit.

It is expected that the unit will receive between 50 to 100 patients in the current year for pulmonary hypertension since this is a rare and incurable disease.

The Pulmonary Hypertension unit offers two types of medical services, the first type is treatment of respiratory diseases and the second type is treatment of breathing disorder during sleeping, in addition, there will be three laboratories under the direct supervision of the department, which includes laboratory for examining lung function disorders, laboratory for examining sleep apnea and a pulmonary endoscopy unit.

It should be noted that ZMH is the only hospital in the country that has the latest medical technology device, which is called Endobronchial Ultrasound Guided Biopsy.

Initial studies indicates that the proportion of the disease in the UAE is 4.6 Per cent which is close to global proportions and this study will be published in the meeting of the American Thoracic Society to be held in May, 2010.

Copyright 2010 - Emirates News Agency (WAM)