Acute Pulmonary Embolism at Tanta University Hospital: Single Centre Registry

Background: Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and has significant negative impacts on quality of life, healthcare costs, and longevity. Registries have been created to record ‘real-life’ clinical features and management of patients with PE.

Aim: We aimed to describe a comprehensive view of the clinical presentation, demographic data, treatment modalities and short-term outcome at hospital discharge and 3 months after discharge for patients presented with acute pulmonary embolism at Tanta university hospital to improve the level of care of those patients.

Methods: This study was conducted on 150 patients with confirmed acute PE presented to Tanta university hospitals. The study duration was 1 year from April 2019 to May 2020.

Results: We focused on a group of common risk factors for PE and determined prevelance of each in our enrolled patients, we found increase some risk factors obesity and bed rest > 3 days were the most prevalent risk factors followed by active cancer, estrogen use and lower limb fracture. Symptoms in this study are near to other registries and ESC guidelines 2019 with the commonest symptom was dyspnea and chest pain and the least symptom was hemoptysis. Certain ECG signs more prevalent in our patients and these signs related to RV strain with sinus tachycardia the commonest sign followed by S1Q3T3 sign and the least was right axis deviation.

Conclusion: Presence of active cancer and patients with high risk stratification were independent predictors of mortality. Other factors associated with increased mortality were impaired RV systolic function, high PESI score, presence of RBBB in ECG and presence of congestive heart failure. Increased risk of bleeding in male patients with intermediate high or high risk category especially those received UFH and fibrinolytic therapy. Previous history of VTE was independent predictors of VTE recurrence.