ABSTRACT
Introduction Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is a common disorder with significant morbidity and mortality. The reliable diagnosis of acute PE has long been a vexation for clinicians and there has always been a need for a robust test or series of tests for its diagnosis. The clinical presentation of acute PE ranges from the ‘silent’ (asymptomatic) clot to catastrophic and life-threatening embolization. Perhaps because of this the estimation of the exact prevalence of acute PE has always been difficult to predict. However, acute PE is believed to affect close to 650 000 Americans every year and thought to account for around 50 000 deaths. While these numbers are alarming, the true incidence of PE is likely to be higher because an unknown number of patients with this condition remain either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Moreover even when symptomatic, patients generally present with non-specific complaints such as dyspnea, pleuritic chest pain, cough, and occasionally hemoptysis. Not surprisingly, unless the index of clinical suspicion is high, the diagnosis is commonly overlooked.
