[Long-term prognosis of cardiac pulmonary edema]

A retrospective determination of survival time over a total control phase of eight years was done in 53 patients who had been admitted to an internal intensive care unit in 1970 because of cardial pulmonary edema. The hospital survival rate amounted to 55%. 27% of the patients were still alive six months after discharge; after a year there were only 20%. Three of the 53 patients reached the 8th control year. The most unfavorable short- and long-term prognosis by far was evidenced by pulmonary edema resulting from an acute myocardial infarction with a hospital lethality of 80%; none of these patients survived longer than two years (n = 19). Irrespective of the nature of the basic disease, comparable rates were found for those types of pulmonary edema connected with a higher grade insufficiency of the right heart and corresponding increase of the central venous pressure over 20 cm water column (n = 13). In contrast, the pulmonary edema in consequence of a cor hypertonicum had a fairly good prognosis, because the 50% survival rate amounted to four years in this group (n = 21). All attempts to quantify the life prognosis in cases of pulmonary edema possess only speculative significance for the interests of the individual case. Nevertheless, they are indispensable for the correct choice of therapeutic procedure in medical borderline situations.