Acute Pulmonary Embolism in Patients with COVID-19 at CT Angiography and Relationship to d-Dimer Levels

Reports of acute pulmonary embolism associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have emerged in the literature. For example, Chen et al (1) described 25 pulmonary CT angiographic examinations from 1008 patients with COVID-19; 10 were positive for pulmonary embolism, mostly as segmental or subsegmental acute pulmonary embolism. In addition, d-dimer levels have been reported as elevated in patients with COVID-19 (2,3), with the suggestion of an independent association between the severity of the disease and the level of d-dimer (4). The purpose of this report is to describe the rate of pulmonary embolus in patients classified as having COVID-19 infection who underwent chest CT at a tertiary referral center.