Background: D-dimer is clinically useful for its high sensitivity and negative predictive value as a useful “rule out” test for venous thromboembolism. Nevertheless, the D-dimer assay is not specific and often elevated in states of systemic inflammation or illness.Stasis of blood flow, Endothelial injury, and hypercoagulability are the tenets of thrombus formation. When any one [...]

Background: D-dimer is one of the most commonly used tests because of its high sensitivity, but a high false positive rate prevents healthcare providers from efficiently diagnosing pulmonary embolism (PE). This leads to many patients unnecessarily undergoing CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) scans in the emergency department (ED). This study sought to determine if there is [...]

Background: Pulmonary embolism (PE), refers to obstruction of the pulmonary artery or one of its branches by material (thrombus, tumor, air or fat) that originated elsewhere in the body.Wells criteria must be part of the clinical assessment for PE. With these criteria, we can classify patients as high probability (>6 pts), moderate (2 to 6 [...]

Background: The first reports of COVID-19 came from Wuhan, China, associated with high rates of mortality and end organ damage1. As the virus rapidly spread across the globe, many large tertiary centers found a strong association between COVID-19 and venous thrombus events. One of the first studies in Italy analyzed blood samples from COVID-19 patients [...]

Case Presentation: We present a case of a 62 year old woman with past medical history of HTN, CAD, bipolar disorder, osteoporosis and vertebral compression fractures, who presented to the ER 8 days after T6-T10 vertebroplasties, with pleuritic interscapular pain radiating toward the sternum. She had no dyspnea, palpitations, cough, hemoptysis. Had no tachycardia or [...]