Platypnea Related to Orthodeoxia Caused by True Vascular Lung Shunts

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Abstract
WE have suggested the term "platypnea" to describe dyspnea produced by the assumption of an erect position and relieved by a recumbent one.1 , 2 The term "orthodeoxia" is now suggested to describe accentuated arterial oxygen unsaturation in the erect position improved by a recumbent one. In the three patients described below, orthodeoxia and platypnea, caused by the gravitational effects of an erect thorax, produced increased pulmonary blood flow through true vascular communications (right to left) in the lung bases. Recognition of orthodeoxia may have important diagnostic and therapeutic implications and, when present, should raise the etiologic possibility of true vascular lung . . .

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