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Thrombolysis and Pulmonary Embolism Presenting With Cardiac Arrest
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
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We read with interest the article by Kürkciyan et al.1 Pulmonary embolism is a frequent and often underestimated underlying condition in patients admitted to emergency departments for cardiac arrest. In a previous study by our group2 on a consecutive series of 732 cases of sudden death referring to the emergency department in Ferrara, Italy, during an 11-year period pulmonary embolism was the second most common cause of death (n = 55; 7.5%) after myocardial infarction.
However, some concerns are raised by the conclusions of the article by Kürkciyan et al1 in which the authors seem to always encourage an attempt at thrombolysis. On one hand, of 21 patients undergoing thrombolysis, only 2 (10%) survived to hospital discharge. Moreover, although no patient died as a result of hemorrhage, bleeding complications occurred in 5 cases (24%), and 4 of them required blood replacement. On the other hand, in the group of patients . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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