Thromb Haemostasis
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Multicenter Study
Clinical usefulness of D-dimer testing in cancer patients with suspected pulmonary embolism.
Limited data are available about the diagnostic value of D-dimer testing in cancer patients with clinically suspected pulmonary embolism (PE). Therefore, we evaluated i) the safety and clinical usefulness of an ELISA D-dimer test to rule out PE in cancer patients compared with non-cancer patients and ii) whether adopting a higher D-dimer cut-off value might increase the usefulness of D-dimer in cancer patients. We analysed data from two outcome studies which enrolled 1,721 consecutive patients presenting in the emergency department with clinically suspected PE. ⋯ The 3-month thromboembolic risk was 0% (95% CI: 0% to 18%) in cancer patients with a negative D-dimer test. ELISA D-dimer appears safe to rule out pulmonary embolism in cancer patients but it is negative in only one of ten patients at the usual cut-off value. Increasing the cut-off value of D-dimer in cancer patients might increase the test's clinical usefulness.