Imaging diagnosis of pulmonary embolism

Objective: To assess the diagnostic value of three imaging diagnostic methods in diagnosis of pulmonary embolism and infarction. Methods: Three diagnostic imaging methods (X-ray, ventilation perfusion scanning and pulmonary angiography) were compared and evaluated on the basis of 20 patients suspected of pulmonary embolism and infarction. Results: 10 of the 20 cases were positive as diagnosed by pulmonary angiography, using this as the diagnostic standard, the sensitivity and specificity are 42.86% and 33.33% for X-ray examination, and 72.72% and 77.78% for ventilation perfusion scanning. Conclusions: X-ray and ventilation perfusion scanning are the methods of first choice for diagnosis of pulmonary embolism, while pulmonary angiography is the most reliable method. Being invasive the latter will be used only when pulmonary embolism is highly suspected and difficult to determine with other methods