The values of CT and nuclear medicine in pulmonary embolism diagnosis

Pulmonary embolism is caused by a blockage of the main pulmonary artery or one of its branches by endogenous or exogenous embolus, and includes a series of clinical, physiological and pathological symptoms with high morbidity. Computed tomography (CT) and nuclear medicine are the two most commonly imaging techniques used to diagnose pulmonary embolism in clinical setting. With the constantly updating of compute software and hardware, the applications of the two techniques are also in progress. We reviewed the progress of CT and nuclear medicine on pulmonary embolism diagnosis and compared the advantages and disadvantages among various diagnostic methods to provide a reference for clinical selection of proper diagnosis method. (authors)