Epidemiology of pulmonary embolism in today’s context: analysis of incidence, mortality and problems of their study

Abstract

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the third most common cardiovascular disease (estimated incidence in Europe and the United States is at least 250000-300000 per year), as well as one of the main causes of death. At the same time, over the past two decades, there has been a steady increase in the incidence of PE with a relatively stable prevalence of deep vein thrombosis.Obtaining objective epidemiological and statistical information on PE is difficult due to the difficulties of diagnostics (non-specificity of clinical symptoms, late seeking medical attention, limited diagnostic capabilities, frequency of autopsies, insufficient alertness of doctors) and the peculiarities of statistical recording (being a complication of other diseases, PE is subject to accounting only for multicausal statistical analysis of the diagnosis, which is not a widespread practice; in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, the 10th revision, of the code I26 “Pulmonary embolism” also includes other conditions and excludes PE due to obstetric and gynecological pathology, so it is not possible to “isolate” PE as a single nosology in the official statistical reports under the existing coding system).

Keywords

• pulmonary embolism
• pe
• venous thromboembolism
• epidemiology
• statistics
• international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems