Treatment of Pulmonary Embolic Disease

Abstract

THE evidence continues to accumulate that pulmonary embolic disease represents a major cause of death, especially among patients in hospitals. Smith, Dexter and Dammin,¹ in autopsy studies at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, found pulmonary embolism to be the single most common cause of death. Freiman² found evidence of old or recent pulmonary emboli in 64 per cent of a group of consecutive patients autopsied at the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston. Morrell, Truelove and Barr,³ impressed by an apparent fivefold increase in the number of patients given the diagnosis of pulmonary emboli at the United Oxford Hospitals in the . . .