Abstract
The use of plasma D-dimer assay has been advocated for the exclusion of pulmonary
embolism. We retrospectively looked at 840 patients in whom both ventilation–perfusion
scan and D-dimer assay were performed within 48 h. The negative predictive value of
a negative D-dimer assay was 96% for emergency admissions and 98% for inpatients.
We present the cases of two patients with negative D-dimer assay results who had a
high-probability lung scan, and we have found a further three patients with negative
D-dimer assay results who had an intermediate-probability lung scan.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 10, 2009
Accepted:
May 22,
2009
Received:
January 25,
2009
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
