ARE WE DIAGNOSING TOO MANY HEMODYNAMICALLY INSIGNIFICANT PULMONARY EMBOLISMS BY CT PULMONARY ANGIOGRAM?
Methods: This was a retrospective study of 299 patients conducted between December 2007 and March 2008 at Abington Memorial Hospital (AMH); 150 patients diagnosed and treated for PE from 1997-2000 and 149 patients diagnosed and treated for PE from 2004-2007 who were randomly selected. Five patients who had both VQ scan and CT angiogram were excluded from the analysis. Two hundred and ninety four patients were divided into two groups depending upon whether they had a VQ scan (n=156) or a CT angiogram (n=138). Data were collected by medical records review and analyzed using SPSS v 15.0. Data were summarized using descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations and frequencies. Inferential statistics such as the t test and analysis of variance were used to compare continuous variables and Pearsons chi square test and Fisher’s Exact test were used to compare discrete variables. All p-values were two tailed and a level of <0.05 was considered significant. Results: The major outcom
