Point: Pulmonary edema does occur in human athletes performing heavy sea-level exercise.

摘要

My colleagues (25) have a difficult task, because it is easier to prove a positive than a negative. A 1978 case report documents two athletes that presented, after running the Comrades marathon, with shortness of breath, cough productive of blood tinged and/or pink frothy sputum, crepitations on auscultation, and chest radiograph findings of pulmonary edema (18). There can be no doubt that these athletes had pulmonary edema, and although the Comrades marathon represents an extraordinary exercise task because of its length (90 km), the elevation of the route never exceeded 1,000 m.