ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To improve the capability of diagnosing and treating for pulmonary thromboembolism (PE) by analyzing the characteristics of PE. METHODS: Retrospective analysis was performed among 252 patients with PE, diagnosed by CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) without medical history of serious cardiopulmonary disease. And the before-after comparisons in echocardiography cardiovascular parameters and pulmonary artery Qanadli embolism index (PAQI) were launched within 32 patients who finished 3 months follow-up visiting. RESULTS: In 252 patients with final diagnosis of PE, smoking was the most important risk factor, accounted for 44.84%. Dyspnea was the main symptom in patients with PE (84.13%). PE often occurred in the elderly [64.00 (19.75) years old]. Hypotension, shortness of breath and tachycardia were always observed when circulatory collapsed. It could not be excluded for PE when D-dimmer was less than 5000 mg/L. In 32 patients rechecked 3 months after treatment, PAQI was significantly decreased compared with that before treatment [0.05 (0.18) vs. 0.39 (0.44), P < 0.01], but there were no significant differences in cardiovascular parameters before and after treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The clinical manifestations of PE are variable, it could be considered when the elder or smoker were suffered with dyspnea. After 3 months of anticoagulant therapy, cardiac morphology induced by PE didn't get demonstrate improvement.
