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At least one in six patients with new pulmonary embolism has a diagnostic delay of 7 days or longer. Investigators retrospectively analyzed 514 patients from a French prospective cohort study of first symptomatic pulmonary embolism (PE). Median time from patient-reported initial symptoms to PE diagnosis was 3 days. Patients were divided into two groups: PE diagnoses in ≤3 days or >3 days.
After multivariate adjustment for differences in baseline characteristics between the two groups, significant clinical predictors of delayed PE diagnosis included dyspnea (odds ratio, 2.5) and hemoptysis (OR, 3.6). Factors that lowered the likelihood of diagnostic delay were previous deep venous thrombosis, immobilization, recent surgery, chest pain, and sy…