July 17, 2001Annals of Internal Medicine1,443 citations
Excluding Pulmonary Embolism at the Bedside without Diagnostic Imaging: Management of Patients with Suspected Pulmonary Embolism Presenting to the Emergency Department by Using a Simple Clinical Model and d-dimer
To determine whether combining a bedside clinical pretest probability model with D-dimer testing safely manages suspected pulmonary embolism without routine diagnostic imaging.
Evaluated emergency department patients presenting with suspected pulmonary embolism.
Applied a simple clinical prediction model to determine pretest probability alongside D-dimer testing to guide the need for further diagnostic imaging.
Managing patients based on pretest probability and D-dimer results safely ruled out pulmonary embolism.
The bedside clinical strategy significantly reduced the need for diagnostic imaging.
Abstract
Managing patients for suspected pulmonary embolism on the basis of pretest probability and D -dimer result is safe and decreases the need for diagnostic imaging.