A new diagnostic marker for acute pulmonary embolism in emergency department: mean platelet volume.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the diagnostic importance of mean platelet volume (MPV) on acute pulmonary embolism (APE) in the emergency Department (ED). METHODS Subjects were selected from patients admitted to ED with clinically suspected APE. Demographic, anthropometric and serologic data were collected for each patient. RESULTS A total of 315 consecutive patients were analyzed, including 150 patients (53.44 ± 15.14 y; 92 men/58 women) in APE group and 165 patients (49.80 ±13.76y; 94 men/71 women) in the control group. MPV in the APE group was significantly higher than in the control group (9.42±1.22 fl vs. 8.04±0.89 fl, p<0.0001). The best cut-off values for MPV when predicting APE in patients with clinically suspected APE presenting at the ED were 8.55 fl (sensitivity 82.2%; specificity 52.3%). CONCLUSIONS MPV is a helpful parameter for the diagnosis of APE in ED, for the first time in the literature.