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ORPHA:330012

High altitude pulmonary edema

medium confidenceDisorder

Also known as: HAPE

Publications

2,110

93.3th percentile

Trials

9

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

879

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare pulmonary condition characterized by non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema occurring in otherwise healthy individuals within days of an ascent above 2500-3000 m. Early symptoms include exertional dyspnea, non-productive cough, chest tightness, and reduced exercise performance, followed by dyspnea at rest and possibly orthopnea, as well as gurgling in the chest and pink frothy sputum in advanced cases. Clinical signs are cyanosis, tachypnea, tachycardia, crackles or wheezing, and elevated body temperature (generally not exceeding 38.5°C). Signs of concomitant high-altitude cerebral edema may also be observed. Chest x-rays typically show patchy opacities predominantly in the right middle lobe.

How rare: 1-9 / 1 000 000 — roughly one to nine people per million. In a city the size of Kolkata, perhaps a few dozen.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    2,110 matched papers (1,082 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    9 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (2 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

2,110

2,110 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

2,110 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

1,082 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 93.3th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 2,110 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

879

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Wang Y25 papers · 2026

    Key Laboratory of Molecular Mechanism and Intervention Research for Plateau Diseases of Tibet Autonomous Region, School of Medicine, Xizang Minzu University, Xianyang, Shaanxi 712082, China; School of Basic Medical Sciences, Xizang Minzu University, Xianyang, Shaanxi 712082, China; Department of Clinical Laboratory, the Affiliated Hospital of Xizang Minzu University, Xianyang, Shaanxi 712082, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Liu J16 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Wang Z13 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    He Y10 papers · 2026

    Key Laboratory of Molecular Mechanism and Intervention Research for Plateau Diseases of Tibet Autonomous Region, School of Medicine, Xizang Minzu University, Xianyang, Shaanxi 712082, China; School of Basic Medical Sciences, Xizang Minzu University, Xianyang, Shaanxi 712082, China; Engineering Research Center of Tibetan Medicine Detection Technology, Ministry of Education, China. Electronic address: 545139647@qq.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Huang D10 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Jia N10 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Shen Z10 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Li X9 papers · 2026

    Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 27 Tai-Ping Road, Beijing 100850, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Liu Y9 papers · 2026

    Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 27 Tai-Ping Road, Beijing 100850, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Pei C9 papers · 2026

    Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

9

interventional trials for this specific condition

9 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 2 currently recruiting in our sample. 70 trials are registered for pulmonary edema, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

9 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 91.2th percentile).

medium confidence · 91.2th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

9 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Broader category: pulmonary edema

70

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Observational and natural-history studies

4 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"High altitude pulmonary edema"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"High altitude pulmonary edema"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 9 interventional · 4 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"pulmonary edema"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: HAPE

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T14:01:23.043Z