Survival and restoration of Pulmonary Perfusion in a Long-Term Follow-up of Patients after Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Abstract: We followed prospectively 834 consecutive patients (70%inpatients), evaluated for suspected pulmonary embolism, for a median time of 2.1 years (range, 0-4.8yr), and compared the survival rates in patients with proven pulmonary embolism (n= 320) with those without (n=514). In multivariate analysis, we modeledthe probabilityof survivinginpatients withpulmonary embolismas a function of the extent of pulmonary vascular obstructionat baseline. Amongpatientswithpulmonaryembolism, ascintigraphicfollow-upwas pursuedtoassess therestorationof pulmonaryperfusionovera1-yearperiod. We found that massive pulmonary embolism(vascular obstruction