Pulmonary embolism in obesity-hypoventilation syndrome.

INTRODUCTION: Obesity-hypoventilation syndrome occurs with alveolar hypoventilation during sleeping and daytime. Obesity may be a risk factor for venous thromboembolism. However, the venous thromboembolism in the obesity-hypoventilation syndrome is not well characterized. OBJECTIVE: This case series aimed to investigate the presence and clinical features of venous thromboembolism in patients with the obesity-hypoventilation syndrome. METHODS: Data of eight case reports were collected. Ages ranged from 36 to 73 years. RESULTS: All patients had mosaic perfusion and enlarged main pulmonary artery, two had signs of infarction and mostly segmental and subsegmental filling defects. On the basis of this information some conclusions can be drawn carefully. CONCLUSION: Present cases indicate that pulmonary embolism are also very common in patients with obesity-hypoventilation syndrome, anticoagulant therapy is at least as important as the treatment of the current disease. Clinicians will frequently be faced with patients with obesity-hypoventilation syndrome suspected of PE.

Troublesome cough as the sole manifestation of pulmonary embolism.

Early diagnosis and effective treatment to reduce mortality is the basis of pulmonary embolism. However, the diagnosis can be easily overlooked due to nonspecific clinical presentation. We present 9 cases of pulmonary embolism manifested by a symptom suggestive of an irritating cough due to viral upper respiratory tract infection (patients with no risk factors for PE). Pulmonary embolism should be considered in cases of irritating cough that does not respond to inhaler treatment, d-dimer positive and normal chest X-ray.