Incidental Discovery of Pulmonary Emboli Via CT Scan: Impact of Detections on Patient Care and Resulting Complications

In recent years, with an increase in the frequency of CT examinations, there has also been an increase in the random discovery of pulmonary emboli, often small, as part of examinations performed for other indications. Most of the literature so far deals with the discovery of such findings mainly in oncological patients, and there is relatively little information regarding the frequency of such random discovery in other patient populations. Specifically in the intensive care patient population, we have not yet found any study that examined the detection rates of these findings. Also, there is no consensus regarding how these random findings should be treated from a therapeutic point of view (whether to start treatment with full anticoagulation, and if so, for what period of time).

Random pulmonary embolism is often discovered as part of a CT scan done to assess acute lung disease or lung cancer staging. In a study done in oncology patients, 385 chest CT examinations were examined, with a random discovery of pulmonary emboli at a rate of 2.6% . A larger analysis of 8 studies involving 8491 cancer patients found a slightly higher incidence of 3.6%.

We would like to check the rate of pulmonary emboli that were randomly discovered in chest CT examinations performed in the intensive care unit for other indications, and the consequences of discoveries - ie starting anti-coagulant treatment and whether there were any complications for starting such treatment (bleeding).