Acute Pulmonary Embolism in Patients with COVID-19 at CT Angiography and Relationship to <scp>d</scp>-Dimer Levels
Ian Léonard-Lorant, Xavier Delabranche, François Séverac, Julie Helms, Coralie Pauzet, Olivier Collange, Francis Schneider, Aïssam Labani, Pascal Bilbault, Sébastien Molière, Pierre Leyendecker, Catherine Roy, Mickaël Ohana
Abstract
Reports of acute pulmonary embolism associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have emerged in the literature. For example, Chen et al (1) described 25 pulmonary CT angiographic examinations from 1008 patients with COVID-19; 10 were positive for pulmonary embolism, mostly as segmental or subsegmental acute pulmonary embolism. In addition, d-dimer levels have been reported as elevated in patients with COVID-19 (2,3), with the suggestion of an independent association between the severity of the disease and the level of d-dimer (4). The purpose of this report is to describe the rate of pulmonary embolus in patients classified as having COVID-19 infection who underwent chest CT at a tertiary referral center.