We studied 196 patients with suspicion of pulmonary embolism (PE) to evaluate the role of clinical pattern, with special reference to gender and age, in raising the suspicion. Results are that clinical and instrumental patterns, although not specific for PE, may show highly frequent symptoms and signs such as dyspnea (52%), chest pain (60%), enlargement of descending pulmonary artery (49%), diaphragmatic elevation (41%), enlargement of azygos vein (46%) and hypoxia (mean value 68 ± 13 mm Hg) that allow to suspect PE in most patients and, therefore, to recruit more patients for diagnosis. Moreover, this study shows that gender and age may only partially influence the possibility of raising the suspicion of PE. Indeed, only hemoptysis is significantly (p 0.03) are significantly more frequent in elderly patients. Finally, a characteristic clinical and instrumental pattern of PE may allow to select a subset of patients at higher risk; in fact, previous PE, prolonged immobilization (p