Abstract
Summary
1. Pulmonary infarction has occurred in 19 patients with severe mitral stenosis or congestive heart failure 2 1/2 to 79 hours following wedging of a cardiac catheter into a branch of the pulmonary artery for the measurement of pulmonary “capillary” pressure. 2. Over a period of 6 months, pulmonary infarction occurred in over half the patients studied with severe mitral stenosis. 3. In other patients without pulmonary congestion, pulmonary infarction did not occur. When the catheters were sterilized by auto-claving instead of by soaking in mercurioxy-cyanide, pulmonary infarction did not occur in 20 consecutive patients with either severe mitral stenosis or congestive heart failure.
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