value of perfusion ventilation lung scanning in the detection of pulmonary embolism following major surgical procedures

ABSTRACT

Twenty patients were studied by combined perfusion-ventilation lung scanning before and after major surgical procedures. All cases showed a normal preoperative scans, except for a single case which showed chronic obstructive lung disease. Fifteen patients were still having normal scans in the postoperative period, whereas the other five cases showed significant change. There was mismatching between perfusion and ventilation scans in 4 cases, while the 5th case showed matched defects with collapsed segment in x-ray and was not considered as thromboembolic disease. So the incidence of post operative pulmonary embolism was 4/20 patients [20%]. Clinical symptoms were evident in two patients, one of them died in the recovery room and other improved on heparin therapy