The acutely dypsneic patient

The limited variation of pulmonary responses to disease—dyspnea, cough, production of adventitious sounds, sputum production, and hemoptysis—complicates the differential diagnosis of the acutely ill patient with obvious severe pulmonary disease. This paper attempts to reinforce and redefine this problemacute cardiac and pulmonary dyspnea can generally be separated by quick but careful clinical analysis; misdiagnosis may lead to disaster since effective treatment of one is frequently harmful to the other.