Over-Testing for Suspected Pulmonary Embolism in American Emergency Departments: The Continuing Epidemic.
Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes
; 13(1): e005753, 2020 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31957477
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
No recent data have investigated rates of diagnostic testing for pulmonary embolism (PE) in US emergency departments (EDs), and no data have examined computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA) rates in subgroups at high risk for adverse imaging outcomes, including young women and children. We hypothesized that over-testing for PE remains a problem. METHODS ANDRESULTS:
We used electronic health record and billing data for 16 EDs in Indiana and 11 hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from 2016 to 2019 to locate ED patients who had any of the following D-dimer, CTPA, scintillation ventilation perfusion lung scanning or formal pulmonary angiography. The primary outcomes were ED encounter volume-adjusted CTPA rate, PE yield rate with subgroup reporting for children (<18 years) and women under 45 years. We also examined the most frequent diagnoses. From a total visit volume of 1 828 010 patient encounters, 97 125 (5.3% of the total volume) had a diagnostic test for PE, including 25 870 patients who had CTPA order without D-dimer (59% of all tests for PE). The yield rate for PE from CTPA scans was 1.3% (1.1%-1.5%) in Indiana and 4.8% (4.2%-5.1%) in Dallas-Fort Worth (pooled rate 3.1%). Linear regression showed that increased D-dimer ordering correlated with increased PE yield rate (Pearson's R2=0.43; P<0.001). From the pooled sample, 59% of CTPAs done were in women, with 21% of all CTPAs performed on women under 45 years of age, and 1.4% (1.3%-1.5%) on children. The most frequent diagnoses were symptom-based descriptions of chest pain (34%) and shortness of breath (6.5%) and the condition-based diagnosis of pneumonia (4.1%).CONCLUSIONS:
Over-testing for PE in American EDs remains a major public health problem. Centers with higher D-dimer ordering had higher yield of PE on CTPA. These data suggest the potential for implementation of D-dimer based protocols to reduce low-yield CTPA ordering.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pulmonary Artery
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Pulmonary Embolism
/
Practice Patterns, Physicians'
/
Emergency Service, Hospital
/
Medical Overuse
/
Computed Tomography Angiography
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
/
Diagnostic_studies
/
Etiology_studies
/
Guideline
/
Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
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Aged
/
Aged80
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes
Journal subject:
ANGIOLOGIA
/
CARDIOLOGIA
Year:
2020
Document type:
Article