Radiological findings and their relationship with mortality in acute pulmonary embolism

F. Taşçı, İ. Ataş, M. Murat Yazıcı, E. Güler, Ö. Bilir

Department of Radiology, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Training and Research Hospital, Rize, Turkey. drismailatas@gmail.com

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• Radiology

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate whether sarcopenia had the potential to predict mortality by analyzing epicardial and visceral fat thickness measurements, which are among the radiological findings and scores known to be crucial in determining the prognosis and risk classification of patients diagnosed with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) in the emergency department.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study included patients diagnosed with acute PE in the emergency department from January 2019 to December 2022 and involved the retrospective examination of their demographic characteristics, clinical parameters, and radiological data obtained from computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) [main pulmonary artery (MPA) diameter, pulmonary artery obstruction, right and left ventricular diameters, epicardial and visceral tissue thicknesses, and pectoralis muscle thickness (PMT)]. The primary endpoint was mortality during the hospitalized treatment and follow-up processes, and the secondary endpoint was mortality within 90 days after diagnosis.

RESULTS: Of the 389 patients included in the study, 11.6% had a fatal outcome in the early period following hospitalization for treatment, and 22.6% had a fatal outcome within the 90-day (late) period after diagnosis. In patients with late-period mortality, pleural fluid (30.8%), pericardial fluid (16.7%), and atelectasis (32.6%) were found to be statistically significantly higher. Among the markers obtained from imaging examinations, only PMT – right: 9.4 [interquartile range (IQR): 6.0-14.0]; left: 9.1 (IQR: 5.4-13.8) – was associated with mortality. According to logistic regression analysis, the MPA diameter was associated with early-period mortality, and it was determined that the right ventricular diameter and the right and left PMT values had a predictive effect on late-period mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: To predict mortality, CTPA-based scoring systems that include markers such as PMT, pericardial and pleural fluid, and atelectasis would be more effective; however, large-scale studies are needed to enrich these findings.

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