Prognostic Factors for Acute Pulmonary Embolism in Critically Ill Patients

Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is an important cause of in-hospital mortality and may be rapidly fatal if not diagnosed and treated. Despite recent advances in diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, it is still one of the important causes of hospital mortality. Previous several reports have described the variable outcome of patients with PE with reported mortality rate ranging from 8.1% (stable patients) to 25% (with cardiogenic shock) and 65% (post cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Nevertheless, there are no published studies from Korean hospitals that assessed the outcome of acute PE treated in the hospital with IV unfractionated heparin. We conducted this study to determine the outcome, risk factors, clinical characteristics and demographics of patients with acute PE and to identify possible demographic and clinical factors associated with prognosis.