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  • Title: Heart disease in patients with pulmonary embolism.
    Author: Pesavento R, Piovella C, Prandoni P.
    Journal: Curr Opin Pulm Med; 2010 Sep; 16(5):415-8. PubMed ID: 20531195.
    Abstract:
    PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Several heart diseases are promoters of left-side cardiac thrombosis and could lead to arterial embolism. The same mechanism may be responsible for right-side cardiac thrombosis and therefore be a direct source of pulmonary embolism. RECENT FINDINGS: Yasuoka et al. showed a higher incidence of perfusion defects in lung scan in patients with spontaneous echocontrast in the right atrium than in those without it (40% and 7% respectively; P=0.006). We recently assessed the prevalence of heart diseases in 11.236 consecutive patients older than 60 years discharged from Venetian hospitals with a diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. We observed a higher prevalence of all-cause heart diseases (odds ratio 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.13-1.40) in patients with a diagnosis of pulmonary embolism alone (secondary or unprovoked) compared with those discharged with a diagnosis of pulmonary embolism associated with deep vein thrombosis, generating the hypothesis that some specific heart diseases in older patients could themselves be a possible source of pulmonary emboli. SUMMARY: Further prospective studies are required to confirm these findings, which have the potential to open new horizons for the interpretation and management of venous thromboembolic disease.
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