Diagnostic Usefulness of Dual-Energy Computed Tomography in Evaluation of the Severity of Acute Pulmonary Thromboembolism

• Main Authors: Sung Min Moon, Hyun Ju Seon, Jang Mi Baek, Seung Jin Lee, Yeon Hong Yoon, Yun-Hyeon Kim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Korean Society of Radiology 2015-01-01
• Series: 대한영상의학회지
• Subjects: acute pulmonary thromboembolism; dual-energy computed tomography
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3348/jksr.2015.72.1.38
• ISSN: 1738-2637; 2288-2928

Purpose To evaluate the usefulness of dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) in severity assessment of patients with acute pulmonary thromboembolism (APTE). Materials and Methods We evaluated 61 patients diagnosed as APTE from 2011 to 2012 in a retrospective analysis of the severity assessment indices according to Criteria by European Society of Cardiology as well as pulmonary CT angiographic obstruction score (OS) and lung perfusion index (pulmonary perfusion defect score; DS) by DECT. The correlation between OS, DS and the severity of pulmonary thromboembolism was evaluated using logit analysis. Results Patients with high OS also showed significantly higher DS values (p < 0.001). There was a significant correlation between both the OS and DS values and the severity of the pulmonary thromboembolism using simple sequence logit analysis (p < 0.001). However, only the DS value showed a very high correlation with the severity of pulmonary thromboembolism using multiple sequence logit analysis. Conclusion DECT provides a more useful marker for the diagnosis and severity assessment of pulmonary thromboembolism by checking the degree of lung perfusion as well as determining the existence of APTE in patients with suspected pulmonary thromboembolism.