A retrospective study on pulmonary embolism:a report of 67 cases / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To retrospectively analyze the clinical features,diagnostic experience and therapy of pulmonary embolism for reduction of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis,and for improving the cure rate.Methods The data of clinical features,findings by auxiliary examination and therapeutic efficacy of 67 patients with pulmonary embolism admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of General Hospital of PLA were summarized.The usual clinical manifestations were summarized based on the clinical symptoms of and the frequency of objective signs in the patients with the correct diagnosis.Auxiliary examinations included routine and sophisticated examinations such as CT pulmonary angiography(CTPA) and emission computed tomography(ECT),which were specially emphasized for summing up and optimizing the diagnosis.Comparisons were made of the therapeutic efficacy and complications between the treatment with thrombolysis combined with anticoagulation and simple anticoagulation.Results The primary clinical manifestations of the patients with pulmonary embolism included dyspnea,cough,chest pain,fever and hemoptysis,etc.Findings of D-Dimer assay might serve as a sensitive but not specific indicator in screening the suspected patients.For the sophisticated examinations,CTPA confirmed the diagnosis in 28 out of 31(90.32%) patients,and ECT confirmed the diagnosis in 39 out of 51(76.47%).All the patients who had undergone lung angiography received the final diagnosis,but the majority of them were reluctant to accept this examination because of potential risk of the technique.The total cure rate of thrombolysis combining anticoagulation was 90.62%(29/32),in which the administration of recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator(rt-PA)-2h was most efficacious(with 100% of cure rate).Simple anticoagulation therapy gave a lower cure rate(68.57%,24/35) but a higher incidence of hemorrhagic complication(31.25%).After the administration of thrombolysis combined with anticoagulation therapy,both PaO2 and CTPA examinations showed significant changes for the better after the treatment compared with that before the treatment(P