Adverse clinical events occurring within 5 days of PE diagnosis
| Outcome | Overall | Day 0 | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In hospital | n=298 | n=298 | n=275 | n=211 | n=153 | n=113 | n=87 |
| Recurrent PE* | 6 (2%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.4%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.9%) | 0 (0%) |
| Hypotension | 35 (12%) | 16 (5%) | 19 (7%) | 8 (4%) | 8 (5%) | 7 (6%) | 6 (7%) |
| Hypoxaemia or need for respiratory support | 61 (20%) | 42 (14%) | 40 (15%) | 31 (15%) | 29 (19%) | 16 (14%) | 16 (18%) |
| Endotracheal intubation or positive pressure ventilation† | 18 (6%) | 13 (4%) | 10 (4%) | 9 (4%) | 5 (3%) | 3 (3%) | 3 (3%) |
| Thrombolysis/thrombectomy | 10 (3%) | 4 (1%) | 6 (2%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
| Vasopressor use | 1 (0.3%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.4%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
| Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) measures | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
| New dysrhythmia‡ | 12 (4%) | 0 (0%) | 6 (2%) | 5 (2%) | 3 (2%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
| New unstable Dysrhythmia‡ | 2 (0.7%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.4%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.7%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
| Major bleeding§ | 7 (2%) | 2 (0.7%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.5%) | 1 (0.7%) | 0 (0.0%) | 0 (0%) |
| Death¶ | 1 (0.3%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (0.9%) | 0 (0%) |
In hospital includes patients who were still in the hospital for their index admission. Day 0 includes events occurring 24 h after the patient left the ED, but before the start of the next calendar day. Events occurring on successive days in the same patient are noted as occurring on each day to give a sense of the continued need for hospitalisation, but only counted once in the overall number of events.
*Two recurrent PE were documented in the first 5 days of the index hospitalisation. Four additional patients returned to an ED within 5 days for symptoms related to recurrent PE and were classified among overall recurrent PE.
†In the primary analysis, patients requiring endotracheal intubation or positive pressure ventilation were included in the analysis of respiratory support and patients with unstable dysrhythmias were considered in the analysis of all dysrhythmias. In the analysis of severe outcomes, these were considered separately.
‡Dysrhythmia includes atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation or reentrant supraventricular tachycardia not present on subject's ED electrocardiogram. Unstable dysrhythmia includes ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation.
§Four major bleeding episodes occurred during the first 5 days of the index hospitalisation. Three additional patients returned to an ED within 5 days for bleeding and were classified among overall major bleeding.
¶One patient died while in hospital during the index hospitalisation. Two additional patients were confirmed to have died on 5-day telephone follow-up and are included among overall 5-day deaths.
ED, emergency department.