Acute left heart failure in the elderly: Report of 50 cases

50 consecutive cases of acute left heart failure in the elderly seen between May 1977 and January 1985 were studied. Accoding to the results of the present study, acute left heart failure in the elderly showed the following features: （1）coronary heart disease（52%） and hypertensive heart disease（26%） were the most common causes; （2）the frequent precipitating factors were respiratory infection （36%） and acute myocardial infarction （22%） ; （3） the main symptoms include acute onset with dyspnea, orthopnea, and sometimes paroxismal nocturnal dyspnea and the patients usually manifested with cyanosis, hypertension, cardiac enlargement and moist rales over both lung fields; （4）atrial or ventricular premature beats, atrial fibrillation, abnormal ST-T, and acute or old myocardial infarction were common EGG findings; （5）chest films often revealed enlargement of the left heart and widening of the aorta arch; （6）most cases responsed to treatment well, if it was administed in time. But the morality rate was high due to non-heart failure factors; and （7） recurrent rate was high. The causes of death were also analysed. And finally, the authors gave some suggestions on the improvement of the therapeutic effect of this disease entity.