Pulmonary embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the third leading cardiovascular cause of death after heart attacks and stroke. PE is caused by blood clots in the pulmonary arteries. These are often caused by clots from the venous system, including thrombus from trauma, surgery or deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Treatment has traditionally been systemic use of thrombolytic drugs to dissolve the clot. But in cases there is a massive, life-threatening PE, or chronic clot burden that have remained in a vessel for an extended period of time, mechanical thrombectomy and ultrasound-assisted catheter-directed thrombolysis (USCDT) is being used as more targeted and aggressive treatments.

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Pulmonary embolism AI cleared

A Silicon Valley AI shop has been OK’d by the FDA to market software that automatically flags suspected pulmonary embolisms (PEs) and immediately notifies physicians.

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VIDEO: Cardiology getting more involved in pulmonary embolism response teams

Terry Bowers, MD, director of vascular medicine at Beaumont Hospital and national co-chair of the Pulmonary Embolism Research Collaborative (PERC), explains the trend toward creating pulmonary embolism (PE) response teams that include cardiology. 

Imaging shows COVID vaccines effective at warding off pulmonary embolism

Researchers have found the condition significantly less among patients who received at least two doses of a COVID vaccine.

Deaths from MI, stroke and pulmonary embolism are down among kidney patients receiving dialysis

The new analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, focused on more than 220,000 dialysis patients treated from 1998 to 2015. 

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COVID-19 linked to greater risk of deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and bleeding events long after recovery

The increased risk of deep vein thrombosis lasts for up to three months, researchers found. 

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Image quality is not an issue for AI model that detects pulmonary embolisms on CT

CTPA is the standard of care for diagnosing PE, but suboptimal scans make it difficult to reach a diagnosis. A new Clinical Imaging study tests the effectiveness of AI when image quality is lacking.

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Chest CT, perfusion imaging spots pulmonary embolism in 25% of hospitalized COVID patients

Men and smokers were particularly prone to this condition, which, if left untreated, carries an up to 30% mortality rate.

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New pulmonary embolism approach could substantially reduce imaging overuse

The pretest probability score produced false-negative rates below 1% and dropped imaging use by about 20%, according to a new JAMA Cardiology study.