Acute pulmonary embolism

Background: Pulmonary embolism is relatively a frequent and dangerous disease with varied manifestations ranging from benign to fatal. The authors in a retrospective study presented a change in the incidence, diagnosis, and treatment of pulmonary embolism during the last 25 years. Methods: The authors performed a retrospective analysis of 860 (432 men) patients with definitely confirmed pulmonary embolism, who were hospitalized at the Department of Internal Medicine of University Hospital in Martin from January 1996 to December 2020. The source of information about patients were their medical documentations. The authors pointed view on an incidence, risk factors, diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism during presented period. Results: The patients with confirmed pulmonary embolism created 1.04% of all hospitalized patients with average age 63.9 (SD -16.98). The average age of men 59.6 (SD -14.71) was lower compared with women 68.4 (SD -16.88). Based on the European Society of Cardiology risk stratification, there were pulmonary embolism with high risk in 13.2%, intermediate risk in 40.9% and low risk in 45.9% patients. The source of thrombosis was detected in 42.6% and risk factors for venous thromboembolism in 52.4% of them. 19.5% of all patients with pulmonary embolism were treated with systemic thrombolysis and intracranial bleeding occurred in 1.1% of them. Pulmonary embolism related early mortality rate was 6.9%. Conclusions: The authors confirmed increasing annual incidence of pulmonary embolism, decreasing annual incidence of massive pulmonary embolism, decreasing pulmonary embolism related mortality rate, but not increasing average age of patients with pulmonary embolism during presented period.