BACKGROUND The diagnosis of pulmonary embolism demands flexible decision models, both for the presence of clinical confounders and for the variability of local diagnostic resources. As Bayesian networks fully meet this requirement, Bayes Pulmonary embolism Assisted Diagnosis (BayPAD), a probabilistic expert systems focused on pulmonary embolism, was developed. METHODS To quantitatively valida...

The aim was to establish the prevalence of pulmonary embolism in 21 children (median age 12 months; range 5-132 months) with central venous lines in situ > 3 months (median 10 months; range 3-47). Twelve-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs) and echocardiograms were analysed in a retrospective study using ECG and echocardiographic criteria for pulmonary embolism-previously established and validated in...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic significance of right ventricular dilation on CT pulmonary angiogram in acute pulmonary embolism and to distinguish if this feature predicts mortality independently of the Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index, an established admission severity score. METHODS A retrospective study of patients admitted with pulmonary embolism confirm...

OBJECTIVES We examined the incidence of pulmonary embolism after cardiac surgery. BACKGROUND Because venous thromboembolism is considered to be an uncommon complication after cardiac surgery, its incidence was documented in a consecutive series of 1,033 patients who underwent cardiac surgery over a 5-year period. METHODS Parallel cohorts of patients in a tertiary referral center were evalua...

BACKGROUND Diagnosing pulmonary embolism may be difficult, because there is no reliable noninvasive imaging method. We compared a new noninvasive method, gadolinium-enhanced pulmonary magnetic resonance angiography, with standard pulmonary angiography for diagnosing pulmonary embolism. METHODS A total of 30 consecutive patients with suspected pulmonary embolism underwent both standard pulmona...

No single noninvasive test for pulmonary embolism is both sensitive and specific. Some tests are good for "ruling in" pulmonary embolism (e.g., helical CT) and some tests are good for "ruling out" pulmonary embolism (e.g., D-dimer); others are able to do both but are often nondiagnostic (e.g., ventilation-perfusion lung scanning). For optimal efficiency, choice of the initial diagnostic test sh...

OBJECTIVE We discuss the CT findings in a case of pulmonary embolism complicated by paradoxical embolism in a patient with a patent foramen ovale and atrial septal aneurysm. CONCLUSION When confronted with a case of pulmonary embolism on CT, besides evaluating the extent of pulmonary artery occlusion, the radiologist should examine the cardiovascular system to identify any unsuspected underly...

Studies on the association between asthma and pulmonary thromboembolism are considerably limited. We investigated whether pulmonary embolism is associated with asthma using a nationwide cohort study. We identified 31,356 patients with newly diagnosed asthma in 2002-2008 and 125,157 individuals without asthma randomly selected from the general population, frequency matched by age, sex and index ...

BACKGROUND Saddle pulmonary embolism represents a large clot and a risk for sudden hemodynamic collapse. However, the clinical presentation and outcomes vary widely. On the basis of the findings of right heart dysfunction on echocardiograms, computed tomography angiography, or cardiac enzyme elevation, some argue for the use of thrombolytics or catheter thrombectomy even for hemodynamically sta...