Pulmonary Embolism Revealed on Helical CT Angiography

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Abstract
OBJECTIVE. We compared helical CT angiography and ventilation—perfusion radionuclide lung scanning as initial tests in the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism.SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Two hundred sixteen consecutive patients who were clinically suspected of having acute pulmonary embolism underwent helical CT angiography, ventilation—perfusion radionuclide lung scanning, and Doppler sonography of the veins of the legs. On the basis of concordance of the results for ventilation—perfusion radionuclide lung scanning and helical CT angiography and on the degree of clinical suspicion, certain patients underwent pulmonary angiography. Patients without pulmonary embolism at initial evaluation in whom no treatment was instituted were followed up for at least 3 months to determine the potential recurrence of thromboembolic disease.RESULTS. Of the 216 patients, 37 (17%) were excluded because of insufficient data to assess the initial event. Final diagnosis for the 179 remaining patients was pulmonary embolism in 68 ...

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