[Pulmonary embolism--mortality risk]. / Embolia pulmonar--risco de mortalidade.

We conducted a retrospective analysis on 311 patients with clinical diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) in a period of 3 years. 163 patients were excluded based on clinical-laboratorial criteria. The remaining 146 patients had a median age of 69 years (range: 30-91 years). 54% of the patients were male. We found dyspnea (94%), abnormal cardiopulmonary observation (89%), risk factors for venous thromboembolism (74%), tachycardia (53%), cyanosis (49%), and neck vein distension (45%) to be the most frequent findings. 64% of the patients had heart failure, 32% had myocardial ischemia, 13% had cancer, and 11% had myocardial infarction. Lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) was higher than two-fold in 54% of the patients. There was severe hypoxemia in 55% of the cases and hypocapnia in 43% of the cases. Creatinine phosphokinase (CPK) was elevated in 16% of the cases. Electrocardiography was suggestive of PE in 37% of the cases. Echocardiography showed right heart dysfunction in 30% of the cases, 92% of the patients were treated with heparin, 37 patients (25%) died, 54% of which during the first 4 days after admittance. Trying to define an index of mortality in PE we evaluated all patients by discriminant analysis coming up with 14 items with good discriminative power. By approximation of their odds-ratios we determined how many points would correspond to each item in the total sum.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Determination of endoxin in hypertensive patients]. / Doseamento da endoxina em hipertensos.

Digoxin like immunoreactive factor (DLIF), has been implicated on the effect of sodium in essential hypertension. The different concentration of DLIF as a function of sodium intake was demonstrated in animal experience by some authors. In this work the urinary DLIF excretion is evaluated by RIA and its biological activity by Na+/K+ ATPase inhibition, in 5 urine samples at the end of a free sodium diet week and in 10 urine samples in the last day of a week with 250 mg sodium diet. The urinary DLIF excretion after the free sodium diet week was 0.3460 +/- 0.055 and at the end of sodium restriction diet week of 0.2910 +/- 0.061 nmol/l. Although the DLIF values in the sodium restriction week were smaller than the DLIF values of the free sodium diet week, there was no statistical difference (p = 0.113). In five patients the DLIF could be evaluated at the end of the first and second weeks without changes in the hypertensive therapeutics, with clonidine and nifedipine, along the two weeks. In these five patients at the end of the free sodium diet week and at end of the sodium restricted diet week were 0.3460 +/- 0.055 and 0.2780 +/- 0.060 nmol/l. The reduction of urinary DLIF excretion in the sodium restricted diet week, was significative (p = 0.020). The results of the Na/K ATPase inhibition in the same five patients were: 34.6 +/- 6.51% at the end of the free sodium diet week and 31.7 +/- 6.32% at the end of the sodium restricted diet week, the differences were not statistically significant.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)