| Pulmonary Embolism
This condition occurs when a blood clot suddenly blocks an
artery of the lung. It is a serious and life threatening
condition. Estimates are that over 650,000 Americans suffer PE
annually.
Despite the frequency and gravity of PE, the diagnosis is
often missed. Some estimates are that over 400,000 cases of PE
are missed every year in the emergency room, resulting in over
100,000 deaths of patients who would have survived with proper
diagnosis and treatment. It is the third most common cause of
death in the United States.
Clinical judgment alone is insufficient to make the
diagnosis. There are numerous risk factors and accurate
diagnosis requires the health care provider to consider PE in
the list of possible causes of the patient’s condition,
especially because of the dire consequences of a failure to make
the diagnosis. The failure of the physician to consider the
possibility of PE when risk factors are present may deprive the
patient of the chance of survival. It is so lethal that the
diagnosis should be actively considered in every patient who
presents with any chest symptoms that cannot be proven to have
another cause.
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