These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: D-dimer and thrombin-antithrombin III complexes in patients with clinically suspected pulmonary embolism.
    Author: Demers C, Ginsberg JS, Johnston M, Brill-Edwards P, Panju A.
    Journal: Thromb Haemost; 1992 Apr 02; 67(4):408-12. PubMed ID: 1631787.
    Abstract:
    One hundred and fifty-six consecutive patients with clinically suspected pulmonary embolism (PE) had blood drawn to measure levels of D-dimer and thrombin-antithrombin (TAT) complexes and underwent ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) lung scanning and bilateral impedance plethysmography (IPG); pulmonary angiography was performed in 10 patients. Patients were classified as: PE-positive (positive pulmonary angiography or high probability lung scan or non-high probability lung scan and abnormal IPG) or, PE-negative (normal lung scan or normal pulmonary angiography) or PE-unlikely (non-high probability lung scan and normal serial IPG and absence of venous thromboembolism in follow-up). Thirty patients were classified as PE-positive, 64 as PE-negative and 62 patients as PE-unlikely. PE-positive patients were treated with anticoagulants, whereas PE-negative and PE-unlikely patients were not. PE-unlikely patients were followed for 3 months with repeat IPG and clinical evaluation for the occurrence of venous thromboembolism. The sensitivities, specificities, positive predictive values and negative predictive values of the D-dimer and TAT complex assays were calculated for patients classified as PE-positive and PE-negative. In addition, the prevalences of normal D-dimer and TAT complex assays were calculated for PE-unlikely patients. Cutoffs of 300 ng/ml for D-dimer and 3.5 micrograms/ml for TAT complexes provided sensitivities of 96% for both assays, negative predictive values of 97% for D-dimer and 96% for TAT complexes and specificities of 52% for D-dimer and 51% for TAT complexes. The specificities of the assays were higher in patients without comorbid conditions and in outpatients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]