Short term clinical outcome of acute saddle pulmonary embolism: Figure 1

ider application of spiral computed tomography (CT) not only improves diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) (fig 1), but also allows for noninvasive visualisation of saddle thromboemboli at the level of the bifurcation of the pulmonary trunk and extending into the main right and the main left pulmonary arteries.[1][2][3] Such proximal thrombus may be regarded as unstable, "in-transit" embolus, which can fragment spontaneously or secondary to treatment and obstruct multiple, distal pulmonary arteries.It remains unclear whether this may further increase haemodynamic compromise.Also, it is unknown whether saddle PE requires modification of clinical management.We tried to evaluate if saddle thromboembolus affected two week outcome of patients with acute PE.