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In a retrospective study of electronic medical records spanning 9 years, investigators described the presentation of patients under age 21 years at one of two tertiary pediatric emergency departments (EDs) who were ultimately diagnosed with a pulmonary embolus (PE). Patients were excluded if they were transferred with a PE diagnosis, had a known history of PE, or had PE as a complication of hospitalization. A total of 25 children (median age, 15 years; age range, 26 days to 18 years) met inclusion criteria from a total of some 1.2 million visits — for a prevalence of about 2 PE cases per 100,000 visits.
Common clinical signs and symptoms included tachypnea, tachycardia, chest pain, shortness of breath, cough, and hypoxia. At least one risk f…