Romanian Medical Journal (Jun 2021)
The distribution of the main risk factors in patients with intermediate-high risk pulmonary embolism
Abstract
The pulmonary embolism (PE) represents a medical condition with increasing incidence. The various clinical forms of PE have different prognosis, related to the presence of markers of right ventricle (RV) dysfunction (biochemical or imagistic). Material and method. In this study we included 82 consecutive patients with intermediate-high risk PE, assessing the main risk factors distribution. We divided the patients in two groups, study group - receiving thrombolytic therapy (ateplase (t-Pa)) associated to anticoagulation (unfractionated heparin (UFH)) – and control group – receiving anticoagulation alone -. The inclusion in study group was indicated by the high bleeding risk, in this group being included patients without contraindications for thrombolysis, patients without severe renal dysfunction and patients with body mass index (BMI) 18.5-29.9 kg/m2. We assessed the gender distribution in the two groups, the medium age distribution and the main PE risk factors in the two groups. Also, we assessed the effect of the both therapies on the hemodynamic instability rate on 7 day from admission (defined by systolic blood pressure (SBP) 40 mmHg from inclusion value). The statistical analysis was made using SPSS program, by comparing the association between risk factors and the two groups, by Chi-squared test, while the gender and age distribution was made using the Shapiro Wilk test for the evenly data distribution and Wilk test (as the data were unevenly distributed). Results. We found no correlation between the risk factors and the study groups. There was no statistical significance regarding the gender distribution, but the medium age was higher in control group (61.82 y.o vs. 71.28 y.o, p < 0.001. Regarding the hemodynamic instability rate the Chi-squared test proved a statistical significant higher incidence in the control group (p = 0.03).
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