Pregnancy increases the risk of PE. Symptoms like breathlessness and tachycardia make us think of PE, but these are often present in pregnancy anyway. D-dimer can be useful in selected low risk cases for ruling out PE, but pregnant women are usually excluded from studies so there remains a question over its utility in pregnancy. This paper addressed this issue directly, and is the first prospective study of the diagnostic workup for PE in pregnancy to be published.

Annals of Internal Medicine, December 2018