CT for Suspected Pulmonary Embolism

Evidence supports that CT scans to evaluate for blood clots in the lung, a condition called pulmonary embolism (PE), are increasingly over-utilized and leading to many of these studies being negative when conducted. There are many evidence-based tools and risk calculators to guide medical decision-making to help stratify patients and better tailor an approach to evaluating for this diagnosis prior to obtaining a CT. It is important that this test be used for only patients at elevated risk for the disease because these types of CT scans expose patients to ionizing radiation and use of a dye in the veins during the test that can cause kidney injury. This approach has been endorsed as a Choosing Wisely recommendation by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Within MEDIC, we measure clinical performance using the percentage of CT scans ordered for suspected PE that are positive for PE, also called diagnostic yield.