Evaluation of CT angiography findings in the patients with clinical diagnosis of pulmonary thromboembolism

Background and Aim: Pulmonary thromboembolism is an important clinical problem in the patients after major surgeries and is often difficult to diagnose because of nonspecific clinical symptoms. Diagnosis of pulmonary embolism is based on medical imaging methods. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of CT pulmonary angiographies of the patients with primary clinical diagnosis of pulmonary thromboembolism in Besat Hospital between 2014 and 2015. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 160 patients with primary diagnosis of pulmonary embolism who had been referring to Besat Hospital from 2014 to 2015. Data were extracted from the patient’s `medical records and we used in a checklist for every patient for data collection. Using SPSS software, data were analyzed by descriptive statistics such as mean, median, standard deviation and ratio. Chi-square and t-test were used to find out the relationship between the variables. Result: The results of this study showed that 56.3% of the subjects were female. The mean age of the participants was 45.49 ± 18.5 years, 25.65% were between 31 and 40 years of age and 29.4% had abnormal CT scan results indicative of a definite cause for pulmonary embolism. There was a statistically significant relationship between abnormal CT scan and the results of di-dimer test (p = 0.001). There was also a statistically significant relationship between gender and abnormal CT scan results, so that most patients with abnormal CT scan were male (p = 0.002). Mean age, blood pressure, di-dimer test, respiratory rate, and heart rate were higher in subjects with abnormal CT scan. Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, male patients between 31 and 40 years of age with abnormal CT scans should be examined more closely in order to reduce the mortality rate of the patients.