Name Alert! Treating PE

My entire medical career "PE" used to be about a pulmonary affliction where a blood clot goes to the lungs: pulmonary embolus. Now, thanks to the power of marketing gurus who have little regard for medical nomenclature, there's a new "PE" in town involving the same organ as the heavily marketed malady, "ED."

Sheesh.

Talk about the yin and yang of urology...

-Wes

CT Scan as Good as V/Q for Pulmonary Embolus

An important trial will appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of a prospective randomized trial comparing CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) to V/Q (ventillation/perfusion) scans to exclude pulmonary embolus. CT scans were not found to be inferior to V/Q scans at detecting pulmonary emboli and were actually found to be more sensitive at detecting emboli. The authors concluded that further research would be required to determine whether all pulmonary emboli detected by CTPA should be managed with anticoagulant therapy.

Given the speed and convenience of CT scanners coupled with avoidance of receiving "indeterminant" V/Q scan results, CT scans are likely to preempt V/Q scans in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolus in many patients (with the exception of patients with renal insufficiency in whom iodinated contrast agents might prove dangerous).

-Wes