Pulmonary embolism in old age: usefulness of risk stratification in clinical decision-making


Submitted: 11 June 2016
Accepted: 22 August 2016
Published: 6 October 2016
Abstract Views: 1653
PDF: 635
HTML: 2134
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a common disease with a not negligible short-term risk of death, in particular in the elderly. An adequate evaluation of the prognosis in patients with PE may guide decision-making in terms of the intensity of the initial treatment during the acute phase. Patients with shock or persistent hypotension are at high risk of early mortality and may benefit from immediate reperfusion. Several tools are available to define the short-term prognosis of hemodynamically stable patients. The pulmonary embolism severity index (PESI) score, and the simplified PESI score are particularly useful for identifying patients at low risk of early complications who might be safely treated at home. The identification of patients who are hemodynamically stable at diagnosis but are at a high risk of early complications is more challenging. Current guidelines recommend a multi-parametric prognostic algorithm based on the clinical status, biomarkers and imaging tests. However an aggressive treatment in hemodynamically stable patients is still controversial.

Bova, C., Spagnuolo, V., & Noto, A. (2016). Pulmonary embolism in old age: usefulness of risk stratification in clinical decision-making. Geriatric Care, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/gc.2016.6080

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations