17:48 Jan 31 

Your suggestion "pulmonary embolism X5" seems to be a good way around the problem, and is also valid medical slang and close to the source. Why not make it an answer?

17:45 Jan 31 

DHPete, I am so sorry to hear that! It must have been a terrible experience. [TBH, I still think that five episodes is more likely than five at once, also on linguistic grounds (otherwise, I'd expect it to read "fünffache Lungenembolie", singular). But I never meant to say not to ask the client - being a very active translator's note writer myself!]

16:02 Jan 31 

It's not hard for me to imagine because it happened to me. If small fragments break off a clot elswhere in the body and make their way to the lungs you end up with multiple emboli in a single episode (assuming of course they aren't big enough to block the main blood vessel entering the lungs). I'm pretty certain it's survivable because I'm here writing this. And it's definitely diagnosable, and you can even count how many there are – I saw my CAT scan. And getting back to the linguistic question, I think that because there is more than one way of interpreting the sentence it is just good practice to check with the author.

15:53 Jan 31 

I think they simply mean pulmonary embolism 5x, or in better English: a history of 5 occurrences of pulmonary embolism. I'd use 'occurrence' rather than episode here, though this is a minor nuance."Events" is another option.

see here: http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/132/8/862

15:35 Jan 31 

Yet hard to imagine someone surviving 5 pulmonary emboli at on time - unless they are so small that they can hardly be diagnosed (or numbered).

11:34 Jan 31 

I think that is a great choice. Even one episode of one or more clot(s) is an indication for oral anti-coagulation.

11:27 Jan 31 

going with the rather generic "five pulmonary embolic events", and am leaving it up to my contractor to ask her client if Pete's interpretation is perhaps more appropriate here - this is bound to take a while...

10:34 Jan 31 

Thanks, good point.

10:32 Jan 31 

Having just suffered from this myself I would suggest you check with them whether they mean 5 separate episodes of pulmonary embolism or a single episode involving multiple (five) emboli. I would guess the latter.