View clinical trials related to Pulmonary Embolism.
Filter by:After any surgery, there is a risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), including Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in the major veins of the legs and Pulmonary Embolus (PE) in the lungs. These clots are usually prevented by the administration of low-molecular-weight heparin, a blood thinner that prevents clotting. In most surgical specialties like thoracic or vascular surgery, this treatment is used until patients are discharged from the hospital. However, in orthopaedic surgery, there is strong evidence that longer term preventative treatment up to 35 days after hospital discharge helps to reduce VTE occurrences. In thoracic surgery, there is an even greater risk of developing PE because of the surgical stress, the common presence of cancer and direct damage to blood vessels in the lung during surgery. Despite the potential utility, the use of extended VTE prevention has never been evaluated in the thoracic surgery population. If extended treatment prevents clots, more patients will avoid complications related to VTE. There is currently very limited information available on the incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients undergoing lung cancer resection and the utility of extended thromboprophylaxis (ET) in this patient population. Furthermore, in contrast to patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery where ET has become standard of care, duration of thromboprophylaxis is not well defined in this patient population. Therefore, there is a clear need to systematically evaluate the effects of extended VTE prophylaxis on the incidence of VTE in the post-op population.
Patients with a history of blood clots are at risk of developing additional clots in the future. Doctors use a tool called a clinical decision rule to tell them how likely it is that a patient has a blood clot and if they should have further testing to look for the clot. This tool may cause doctors to over-diagnosis a recurrent clot because the symptoms may be left over from the previous clot. Correctly diagnosing a recurrent blood clot is very important since there are risks associated with both over-diagnosis and under-diagnosis. If a recurrent blood clot is missed (under-diagnosis) the patient is at risk of death from a clot in the lungs. If blood thinners are prescribed when they are not needed (over-diagnosis), the patient may have to take blood thinners for their lifetime and risk having serious bleeding.
DESIGN: An IRB-approved, HIPAA-compliant prospective randomized controlled trial conducted from January 1, 2012-December 31, 2013. SETTING: The ED of an urban Level-I adult trauma center with existing CDS for CTPE. PARTICIPANTS: All attending physicians were stratified into quartiles by 2012 CTPE use and randomized to receive feedback reporting or not. INTERVENTION: Quarterly performance feedback reports consisting of individual and anonymized group data on EBG adherence (using the Wells criteria), CTPE use (CTPEs per 1,000 patients), and yield (percentage of CTPEs positive for PE) beginning January 2013.
Pulmonary Embolism (PE) is a frequent and severe disease with an annual incidence of about 75000 cases in France and a short-term mortality rate of about 10%. Death is usually related to an acute right ventricular (RV) failure due to the increase in right ventricular afterload. Treatment of PE with RV failure consists in fluid expansion and thrombolysis in case of shock. However several studies suggest that fluid expansion may worsen acute RV failure by increasing RV dilatation and ischemia and left ventricular compression by RV dilatation. Thus, current guidelines regarding PE treatment remain unclear about the use of fluid expansion. In a preliminary study published by our group, we showed that diuretic treatment in the setting of PE with RV dilatation is safe and is associated with an increase in urine output, a decrease in heart rate and an increase in SpO2 in normotensive patients with oliguria. This may be related to the decrease of ventricular interdependence and enhancement of both LV and RV function. The main objective of the study is to evaluate the 24-hours clinical benefit of furosemide in patients referred for acute PE with RV dilatation compared to placebo. The combination of urine output and sPESI clinical parameters reflects hemodynamic status. It is relevant as it indicates the disappearance of pre-shock symptoms and is therefore associated with a lower event risk. Thus, it allows early discharge of the patients from the intensive care unit.
The clinical manifestations of pulmonary embolism vary greatly from the absence of specific clinical symptoms to cardiogenic shock or cardiac arrest. Clinical form of EP represented by "lung superinfection", also called "pulmonary embolism superinfected" is common and represents up to 30% of initial clinical presentations; she been few evaluations in clinical research. The reality of the bacterial infection remains controversial and the clinical presentation often leads to the prescription of empirical antibiotic therapy, often unnecessary in many cases. Number of antibiotic prescriptions are probably inappropriate. Fever has long been recognized as a sign associated with pulmonary embolism. Stein et al reported a temperature above 37.5 ° C on 50% of patients with acute pulmonary embolism without actually clarified whether this was related to temperature with a pulmonary embolism or other associated cause. Murray et al estimated that greater than 38 ° C was explained by pulmonary embolism in 57.1% of patients while in the PIOPED study, only 14% of patients had fever with no other cause identified as pulmonary embolism. Fever due to pulmonary embolism is often low intensity (often less than 38.3) and of short duration, with a peak on the day of pulmonary embolism and a gradual decrease of about 1 week. The pathophysiology of fever in pulmonary embolism has not yet was completely clarified. It is suggested that a combination of several factors involved pyrogenic myocardial tissue necrosis and releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines, hemorrhage, vascular irritation or inflammation, atelectasis or local superinfection. Since 2004, the PCT has become a marker helping the initiation of antibiotic therapy in patients with community-acquired pneumonia. This is especially verified in patients admitted for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive bronchitis. In the latter case, the use of PCT reduces inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. Thus helping the clinician by measuring biomarkers such as PCT is based on writing an algorithm leading or not to use antibiotics. The use of an algorithm involving the PCT could just as for infectious pneumonia or COPD, of interest in the febrile pulmonary embolism to distinguish febrile forms related to bacterial infections febrile forms of EP to other causes.
Postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant health-care problem, resulting in significant morbidity, mortality and resource utilization. The true incidence is unknown, and may range from 1% to 15%. At the current time, the clinical practice of VTE prophylaxis in thoracic surgery includes administration of unfractionated or low molecular weight heparin starting at the perioperative period and finishing at the time of patients' discharge. In orthopaedic surgery, prolonged thromboprophylaxis beyond 10 days and up to 35 days has become the standard of care. There is a clear need to systematically evaluate the incidence of VTE after resection of lung malignancies and to evaluate the role of extended VTE prophylaxis in preventing Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolus (PE) after those major lung resections. This study will involve patients undergoing lung resection for malignancy at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and the University Health Network's Toronto General Hospital. The study will include 150 consecutively recruited patients. Study interventions will include Computed Tomography with pulmonary embolus (PE) protocol and bilateral extended leg Doppler Ultrasound for the detection of Deep Vein Thrombosis 30 days post-surgery. In summary, this study is aimed at evaluating, for the first time in a prospective manner, the actual incidence of DVT and PE in patients undergoing major lung resections for malignancies. The knowledge gained in this study will be used to inform a future investigation involving a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to compare current post-operative thromboprophylaxis with an extended 30-day prophylaxis protocol with the hope of providing an evidence-based practice change in VTE prophylaxis care for this high risk population.
Examine the feasibility and efficacy of individually optimized uniform contrast enhancement in CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) for the diagnosis of pulmonary thromboembolic disease.
The primary objective is to demonstrate the clinical benefits of an active strategy for the diagnosis and treatment of PE compared to usual care in patients with unexplained exacerbations of COPD who require hospital admission. The secondary objective is to assess the safety of an active strategy for the diagnosis and treatment of PE compared to usual care in patients with unexplained exacerbations of COPD who require hospital admission.
The study will investigate patients with clinical suspicion for pulmonary embolism (PE) who have a contraindication to iodine based contrast. These patients normally get investigated with studies such as ultrasound and nuclear medicine studies but the fastest and preferred investigation is CT with contrast to look for filling defects in the pulmonary arteries. The investigators will assess whether gadolinium, which is currently used with MRI can be used with CT as an alternative effective contrast in diagnosis or exclusion of PE. A new type of CT scanner, a Dual Energy Scanner will be used to improve the visibility of Gadolinium contrast on CT.
There are no special clinical characteristics of acute pulmonary embolism in Chinese population.