Improving the Triage of Pregnant Women with Suspected Pulmonary Embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a significant contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide, yet studies of screening and diagnostic algorithms have included few pregnant women despite their greater risk for venous thromboembolism. Accordingly, investigators who had previously developed a reliable clinical prediction algorithm for PE modified the algorithm for use in pregnant women and tested it in an international cohort of 498 pregnant women with clinically-suspected PE. Any clinical evidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prompted compression ultrasonography; in the absence of diagnosed DVT, computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CT-PA) was only pursued if at least one of three study criteria (clinical signs of DVT, hemoptysis…