Pulmonary embolism epidemiology and demographics

Associate Editors-in-Chief: Ujjwal Rastogi, MBBS [mailto:urastogi@perfuse.org]

Overview
Each year in United States, there are between 300,000-600,000 cases of pulmonary embolism (PE). If left untreated almost one-third of patients die, typically from recurrent PE. However, with prompt diagnosis and treatment, the mortality rate is only approximately 2–8%. Unfortunately, two-thirds of all cases of PE are diagnosed only on autopsy. PE is the major contributing factor or a cause of death in 16% of the hospitalized patients.

Epidemiology and Demographics

 * Horlander et al analyzed multiple-cause mortality files compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics from 1979 to 1998. They reported that out of 42,932,973 deaths that occurred, almost 600,000 patients (approximately 1.5 percent) had been diagnosed with PE. They also theorized it was the presumed cause of death in 200,000 patients.


 * The incidence rate of massive, submassive and  low-risk  are 5%, 40% and 55% respectively.


 * Only 10-20% of VTE is clinically recognized, as depicted by the figure below.