Pulmonary embolism – 17 Cases analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Marta, Maria João
• Data de Publicação: 2003
• Outros Autores: Saavedra, João A., Ravara, Luciano
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://revista.spmi.pt/index.php/rpmi/article/view/1835
• topic: Pulmonary embolism; casuistic; thoracic spiral computed tomography

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is an important cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. A retrospective three years study of PE, confirmed by perfusion lung scanning and/or spiral computed tomography, in the Internal Medicine I Service of Santa Maria Hospital is presented. Comparative analysis of the international literature in this field is referred. Data from 17 patients (9 females, 8 males; mean age: 62.4±16.8 years) with previous surgery and/or immobilization was reviewed. The majority of the patients presented non-massive PE (52.9%) associated with dyspnea (58.8%) and right ventricular dysfunction (52.9%). Laboratory findings: hypoxaemia (41.2%), elevated lactic acid dehydrogenase (52.9%), d-dimers (35.5%) and fibrinogen (35.5%). Atrial tachycardia was observed on the electrocardiogram in 70.6% of patients. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed right ventricular dysfunction/dilatation in 9.4%. Imagiologic approach often shows a chest film with an enlarged right descending pulmonary artery (29.4%), perfusion lung scanning indicating a high probability of disease (47.1%) and spiral computed tomography with PE in the proximal pulmonary vascular tree (35.3%). All our patients were prescribed anticoagulant therapy. Two patients (11.8%) died.