During 2015 and 2016, 50,696 admissions for acute pulmonary embolism were reported in the UK alone, resulting in an incidence of around 0.8 per 1,000 population. Just under 10% of these cases were in patients aged 40 or under; a cohort with greater than the reported 0.005% per mSv average lifetime cancer risk. While VQ […]
Matthew Memmott, Dr Sivakumar Muthu
Central Manchester University Hospitals
Shortness of breath and chest pain are two of the most common symptoms accounting for acute presentations to hospital. Pulmonary embolism (PE) is part of the differential diagnosis for both symptoms and due to increasing clinical concern about missing venous thromboembolic disease (VTE) and greater access to imaging, there has been a progressive year-on-year increase […]
Dr Marko Berovic
Whittington Hospital
Lung SPECT V/Q has now superseded planar imaging as the standard modality. The benefits of SPECT over planar are clear, with sensitivity, specificity and accuracy matching that of computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA). SPECT V/Q can be carried out with Tc99m MAA for perfusion and Tc99m aerosol for ventilation. However, these two studies must be […]
Bill Thomson, Joseph O'Brien, Manish Pandit, Greg James, Alex Neale, Alp Notghi
City Hospital, Birmingham