Despite advances in prophylaxis, diagnostic modalities or therapeutic options in acute pulmonary embolism (PE), 8% - 15% mortality rate is still reported in hemodynamically stable patients, which increases up to 50% - 58% in patients with hemodynamic instability (1, 2). Other series have reported mortality rates from 2% in patients with nonmassive embolus to a 95% in patients with cardiorespiratory arrest (3, 4). As many of those deaths frequently occur within the first hours after admission, a rapid and specific diagnosis is still required (5)....

- Data Source From 400 patients registered in our institution between November 2010 and June 2015 with suspiction of acute PE, 70 patients were included for this analysis attending to positive findings at MDCT, from which clinical and imaging data were retrospectively reviewed. Allpatients were aged ≥16 years (adults) and underwent at least one MDCT pulmonary angiographic examination with a suggestive PE event. Subjects were initially identified by means of procedure codes, then radiology reports were retrieved and reviewed by a trained radiologist with 10...

- Prevalence of acute PE and demographic characteristics. From 400 adult patients who underwent acute PE-suspected pulmonary MDCT between 2010 - 2015, a total of 70 (17,5%) were included in our study with PE positive findings. From the remaining 330 studies, 16patients (4%) were excluded because of inadequate image quality to assess an accurate quantification of clot burden, and 314 patients (78,5%) were excluded because they were diagnostic for other conditions rather than acute PE, like chronic vascular disease (3,3%) or acute processes (75,2% of...

Radiological risk stratification of patients with acute PE is very important because optimal management, monitoring, and therapeutic strategies depend on the prognosis. In our study, in patients with acute PE, quantification of clot burden in PAs at MDCT did not show significant correlation with short or long term mortality at the follow-up;in most cases, it was directly related withpatient´s basal clinical status (underlying cancer disease). However, the highest clot burden MDCT scores showed strong correlation (p <0.05) with the presence of signs of right heart...

1. Goldhaber SZ, Visani L, De Rosa M. Acute pulmonary embolism: clinical outcomes in the International Cooperative Pulmonary Embolism Registry(ICOPER). Lancet 1999; 353: 1386 - 1389. 2. Kasper W, Konstantinides S, Geibel A, et al. Management strategies and determinants of outcome in acute major pulmonary embolism: results of a multicenter registry. J Am Coll Cardiol 1997; 30:1165 - 1171. 3. Buller HR, Davidson BL, Decousus H, Gallus A,et al. Subcutaneous fondaparinux versus intravenous unfractionated heparin in the initial treatment of pulmonary embolism. N Engl J...