It's never long before the topic of pulmonary embolism makes it back into the controversial lime light and a recent paper on the association of PE with syncope is the lastest reason.

The PESIT trial, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine certainly grabs your attention when you read the abstract, with the implication that PE's are a major and hugely missed cause of the presentation of syncope. It also highlights a diagnostic work up that consists of blanket Well's scoring +/- d-dimer to decide who should be worked up further for the potential diagnosis, for every single patient presenting with syncope, including those with no appropriate symptoms or signs!

As always to read the abstract and draw a conclusion is to fall at the first hurdle, so take a listen to the podcast as we dive a bit deeper into the paper and topic, and of course make sure you take a look at the paper yourself and see what you make of the headline grabbing article

Enjoy!

References and Further Reading

Prevalence of Pulmonary Embolism among Patients Hospitalized for Syncope. Prandoni P. N Engl J Med. 2016

Incidence of asymptomatic pulmonary embolism in moderately to severely injured trauma patients. Schultz DJ.J Trauma. 2004 Apr 

Prospective evaluation of unsuspected pulmonary embolism on contrast enhanced multidetector CT (MDCT) scanning. Ritchie G. Thorax. 2007 Jun.

EM Nerd-The Case of the Incidental Bystander

JC: Prevalence of PE in patients with syncope. St.Emlyn’s