TY - JOUR T1 - Pulmonary capillary recruitment in exercise and pulmonary hypertension JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.00260-2018 VL - 51 IS - 3 SP - 1800260 AU - Horst Olschewski AU - Gabor Kovacs AU - Philippe Herve Y1 - 2018/03/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/51/3/1800260.abstract N2 - We appreciate the comments by Langleben and Orfanos. Indeed, there has been a controversial discussion on recruitment of perfused vessels, distensibility of perfused vessels and even active vasodilatation of the pulmonary circulation during exercise. Shortly after introduction of right heart catheterisation as a diagnostic method, some reports suggested that during exercise, cardiac output may increase considerably with little or no change in pulmonary arterial pressure [1, 2]. Subsequent studies in healthy adults of different ages and sexes, performed in experienced high-volume centres, could not reproduce these results [3]. Indeed it seemed that the increase in pulmonary arterial pressure was always linearly related to the increase in cardiac output, although the steepness of this relationship was strongly age dependent.It is currently premature to judge the recruitment capacity of the pulmonary vasculature in healthy individuals based on the published literature, or to draw any final conclusions http://ow.ly/BdbP30irkAF ER -