Patent ID: 8293284

Claim:
A method of reducing the risk of occurrence of pulmonary edema associated with a medical treatment comprising inhalation of 20 ppm nitric oxide gas, said method comprising: (a) performing echocardiography to identify a term or near-term neonate patient in need of 20 ppm inhaled nitric oxide treatment for pulmonary hypertension, wherein the patient is not dependent on right-to-left shunting of blood; (b) determining that the patient identified in (a) has a pulmonary capillary wedge pressure greater than or equal to 20 mm Hg and thus has left ventricular dysfunction, so is at particular risk of pulmonary edema upon treatment with inhaled nitric oxide; and (c) excluding the patient from inhaled nitric oxide treatment based on the determination that the patient has left ventricular dysfunction and so is at particular risk of pulmonary edema upon treatment with inhaled nitric oxide.