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 ...

The number of vertebral fractures related with osteoporosis has become more frequent in developed countries given the increase in population age. Percutaneous vertebroplasty with acrylic cement is one of the palliative therapies available. A rare complication provoked from this technique is cement embolism. We present the case of a multiple pulmonary embolism caused by acrylic cement observed i...

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...

Current guidelines state that patients over 40 years of age with a first unprovoked pulmonary embolism should be offered limited screening for possible cancer and considered for intensive screening (abdomino-pelvic computed tomography and mammography), despite no evidence for the latter. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical utility and cost of intensive screening in routine clinic...

OBJECTIVES Septic pulmonary embolism caused by a Klebsiella (K.) pneumoniae liver abscess is rare but can cause considerable morbidity and mortality. However, clinical information regarding this condition is limited. This study was conducted to elucidate the full disease spectrum to improve its diagnosis and treatment. METHOD We reviewed the clinical characteristics, imaging findings, and cli...

BACKGROUND Randomized trials and meta-analyses have reached conflicting conclusions regarding the risk benefit ratio of thrombolytic therapy or anticoagulant therapy in patients with moderate pulmonary embolism. To investigate the effect of initial thrombolysis and anticoagulant therapy in patients with moderate pulmonary embolism, we performed an updated meta-analysis. METHODS We searched th...

OBJECTIVE To validate all diagnostic prediction models for ruling out pulmonary embolism that are easily applicable in primary care. DESIGN Systematic review followed by independent external validation study to assess transportability of retrieved models to primary care medicine. SETTING 300 general practices in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS Individual patient dataset of 598 patients with...

OBJECTIVES To assess the likelihood ratios of diagnostic strategies for pulmonary embolism and to determine their clinical application according to pretest probability. DATA SOURCES Medline, Embase, and Pascal Biomed and manual search for articles published from January 1990 to September 2003. STUDY SELECTION Studies that evaluated diagnostic tests for confirmation or exclusion of pulmonary...

A recent reporti indicates an exceedingly high incidence rate (73 percent) of negative pulmonary arteriograms in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism. All of these patients had a “suitable clinical history,” hypoxemia and positive perfusion scans. In view of this apparent failure of clinical evaluation and noninvasive tests, it was concluded that overdiagnosis and overtreatment can be avo...