Spiral Computed Tomography for the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Embolism in Critically Ill Surgical Patients

Abstract
PULMONARY EMBOLISM (PE) is a frequent and often undiagnosed cause of mortality in postoperative critically ill patients.1,2 In a prospective observational study done during a period of 18 months in our surgical intensive care unit (SICU), only 4 PEs were detected among 200 highly selected, severely injured patients with multiple risk factors for venous thromboembolism.3 Given that autopsy studies estimate the PE-related mortality rate of such patients to be 15% to 30%,2 it is likely that many PEs are not detected in a timely fashion.