[Prognosis for patients of an intensive care unit. Myocardial infarct, pulmonary edema, reanimation and severe infections].

The prognosis of patients should influence diagnostic and therapeutic measurements. For this reason the survival time is shown of 516 patients with acute myocardial infarction, 200 patients with pulmonary edema, 553 patients in which resuscitation had become necessary and 201 with life-threatening infections. The survival time is correlated to clinical signs easily obtainable on admission. Small groups can be selected which with a high degree of probability will die during their stay in hospital. Intensive therapy should be withheld from those patients. But prognostic indices without the probability of error cannot yet be constructed.