Journal of thrombosis and haemostasis : JTH
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J. Thromb. Haemost. · Jan 2005
Multicenter StudyAccuracy of single-detector spiral CT in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism: a prospective multicenter cohort study of consecutive patients with abnormal perfusion scintigraphy.
Spiral computed tomography (CT) has emerged as a potentially conclusive diagnostic test to exclude pulmonary embolism (PE) in patients with non-high probability scintigraphy and is already widely used-sometimes as the sole primary diagnostic test in the diagnosis of suspected PE. Its true sensitivity and specificity has, however, not been evaluated previously in a large cohort of consecutive patients. ⋯ The overall sensitivity of spiral CT for PE is too low to endorse its use as the sole test to exclude PE. This holds true even if one limits the discussion to patients with larger PE in segmental or larger pulmonary artery branches. We conclude that, in patients with clinically suspected PE and an abnormal perfusion scintigraphy, single-slice detector spiral CT is not sensitive enough to be used as the sole test to exclude PE.