SCIENTIFIC LETTER
Lung water content is not increased in chronic cardiac failure
1 Department of Medicine, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK
2 Department of Radiology, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK
3 Department of Respiratory Medicine, City Hospital, Belfast, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor Paul Nicholls
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast BT12 6BA, UK; paul.nicholls@royalhospitals.n-i.nhs.uk
Accepted 21 March 2005
Keywords: lung water content; heart failure
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In patients with acute heart failure, lung water content is increased leading to pulmonary oedema.1 This can be detected clinically and radiologically, and makes a major contribution to the severe dyspnoea characteristic of this condition. In contrast, the lung water content in stable chronic cardiac failure has not been defined, as previous studies all included patients with overt fluid overload in their analysis.2–4 We therefore carried out a pilot study with computed tomography (CT) measurement of lung water in patients with stable chronic cardiac failure, as well as some patients with acute heart failure, and compared their scans with scans from patients without evidence of heart failure.
Seventeen patients with chronic cardiac failure (three women) took part in this study. The mean age was 60.4 years (range 41–79 years), mean height 1.73 m (1.58–1.97 m), and mean weight 83.3 kg (64–103 kg). Three were current smokers and four had never
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