Experience with a Perfusion-Only Screening Protocol for Evaluation of Pulmonary Embolism During the COVID-19 Pandemic Surge.
J Nucl Med
; 63(4): 598-601, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1346383
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a pulmonary embolism (PE) perfusion-only screening (POS) protocol introduced during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surge. Subjects without dense parenchymal lung opacities were studied; those with less than 1 segmental perfusion defect were considered to have no PE, whereas those exhibiting 1 or more defects were indeterminate, mandating additional examinations to determine the final diagnosis. Methods:
We analyzed demographic information, clinical data, imaging findings, and follow-up data from the electronic records of COVID-19 patients who underwent lung scintigraphy during the 60-d study period.Results:
In total, 53 studies were performed on 17 COVID-19-positive and 36 COVID-19-negative patients. The POS protocol efficiently excluded PE in 79% of cases; the remaining 21%, indeterminate for PE, were generally referred for alternative testing or were directly anticoagulated. In patients with negative POS results, there was a very low mortality before hospital discharge (1/42) and normal results on follow-up studies (6/6).Conclusion:
The POS protocol, implemented during the COVID-19 surge, efficiently and safely excluded PE in 79% of patients.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pulmonary Embolism
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Nucl Med
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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