Paradoxical embolism is an important clinical entity among patients with venous thromboembolism in the presence of intracardiac or pulmonary shunts. The clinical presentation is diverse and potentially life-threatening. Although the serious nature and complications of paradoxical embolism are recognized, the disease entity is still rarely considered and remains under-reported. This paper provid...

In patients who present with pulmonary embolism, right-heart thrombus is a rare condition that is associated with increased mortality rates, compared with pulmonary embolism alone. Thrombolytic therapy has been associated with a survival benefit in previous studies of pulmonary embolism arising from right-heart thrombus. However, older patients have been excluded from such studies because throm...

1 Lesser BA, Leeper KV Jr. Stein PD, Saltzman HA, Chen J, Thompson BT, et al The diagnosis ofacute pulmonary embolism in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chest 1992; 102:17-22 2 Lippmann ML, Fein AM. Pulmonary embolism in the patient with COPD: a diagnostic dilemma. Chest 1981; 79:39-42 3 Goldberg SK, LipschutzJ, Fein AF, Lippmann ML. Hypercapnia complicating massive pulmona...

1 Lesser BA, Leeper KV Jr. Stein PD, Saltzman HA, Chen J, Thompson BT, et al The diagnosis ofacute pulmonary embolism in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chest 1992; 102:17-22 2 Lippmann ML, Fein AM. Pulmonary embolism in the patient with COPD: a diagnostic dilemma. Chest 1981; 79:39-42 3 Goldberg SK, LipschutzJ, Fein AF, Lippmann ML. Hypercapnia complicating massive pulmona...

Basilar artery territory stroke may result from embolism arising from the site of vertebral artery occlusion. This stroke mechanism (local embolism) has been well documented in the middle cerebral artery territory from extracranial internal carotid artery disease but not fully appreciated in the vertebral basilar circulation. We report two patients whose clinical presentation indicated major ba...

BACKGROUND Cerebral air embolism is a life-threatening complication of various diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Hyperbaric oxygenation is considered to be the cornerstone of its treatment. CASE DESCRIPTION We report a patient with cerebral air embolism after endoscopy of a perineal abscess. Immediate CT imaging confirmed the diagnosis and MRI showed cortically localized areas of restric...

Nearly all long-bone fractures are accompanied by some form of fat embolism. The rare complication of clinically significant fat embolism syndrome, however, occurs in only 0.9-2.2% of cases. The clinical triad of fat embolism syndrome consists of respiratory distress, altered mental status, and petechial rash. Cerebral fat embolism causes the neurologic involvement seen in fat embolism syndrome...

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 To investigate whether there is any chronobiological rhythms in onset of massive pulmonary embolism in Iranian population and to study any time variation in occurrence of this disease in patients' subgroups. METHODS This study was conducted in an emergency department of a referral teaching hospital from March 2003 to March 2007. All medical records of patients with definite diagnos...

OBJECTIVE We tested whether correlation between embolism area and pulmonary arterial pressure may serve as an indicator of pulmonary arterial hypertension in patients with acute pulmonary thromboembolism. PATIENTS AND METHODS In total, 204 patients who underwent spiral computed tomography (CT) pulmonary angiography and ultrasonic cardiogram were enrolled. The patients were stratified accordin...