Sudden onset dyspnea, chest pain, syncope, and hemoptysis are the classic presenting symptoms of acute pulmonary embolism and should prompt immediate objective testing.
Supports classic PE symptom recognition in limited cases; leaves open generalizability without prospective validation.
Most patients with PE feature at least one of four symptoms which, in decreasing order of frequency, are sudden onset dyspnea, chest pain, fainting (or syncope), and hemoptysis. The occurrence of such symptoms, if not explained otherwise, should alert the clinicians to consider PE in differential diagnosis, and order the appropriate objective test.
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Miniati et al. (2012) studied this question.
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