Persistent respiratory insufficiency secondary to diastolic heart failure.

This study assessed two 85-year-old patients diagnosed with diastolic heart failure and persistent respiratory insufficiency characterized by severe obstructive ventilatory disorder and gas exchange alterations. The possibility that the respiratory impairment was consequent to primary pulmonary disease was excluded. Radiological signs of mild pulmonary edema had been observed in 1 of the patients during the 4 years preceding the first hospitalization. The respiratory findings were attributed to pulmonary lesions conditioned to the presence of chronic pulmonary edema. The incidence of the disease in very elderly patients may create an illness that can be called congestive pulmonary disease.