Hey, what's up everybody, and welcome to the Physician Assistant Boards.

podcast, episode number nine. And today I want to talk about pulmonary embolism.

Specifically, I want to talk about the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.

All right, so let's get right into it.

So the pulmonary embolism is a fatal condition and this occurs when the pulmonary artery is obstructed, most commonly by a thrombus originating elsewhere

in the body. A pulmonary embolism may either be acute or chronic, however, the focus of today

will be on the acute pulmonary embolism. You can also

categorize it as central or peripheral, with central carrying a clinical

significance in terms of an increased mortality. Now,bus formation is usually a result of Vercos triad.

This is venestasis, vessel damage, and hypercoagulability.

The thrombus will usually arise from the lower extremities,

specifically the iliophimoral veins. Half of the thrombus that are located here

will eventually make its way up to the pulmonary vasculature.

This is then termed a pulmonary embolism.

The diagnosis is often very difficult to make because the presentation is very nonspecific.

If the diagnosis is not made, pulmonary embolism may have a mortality rate of up to 30%.

The workup regarding a suspected pulmonary embolism is that a much debate but according to a paper by Thompson

and Hales clinical presentation alone has a sensitivity and specificity of

85 and 51 percent respectively this emphasizes the need for additional testing whenever a pulmonary

embolism is suspected. Now the most common presenting symptom are going to be dyspnea and

chest discomfort.

And the severity is the result of the cardiopulmonary status of the patient and the size of the clot.

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