Relationship Between Hematological Parameters and Mortality in Patients with Acute PTE

Objective: Acute pulmonary thromboembolism (APE) is one of the cardiopulmonary diseases that are frequently seen in emergency departments and have a high mortality rate. In this study, we investigated the relationship between hematological parameters, risk scores, clinical-radiological findings, and mortality with a definite diagnosis of APE in our emergency department.
Material and Methods: Patients who were diagnosed with definitive PE by computed tomography pulmonary angiography in the emergency department of our hospital between May 2016 and May 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. The relationship between hematological parameters and mortality in these patients was investigated. SPSS 22.0 for the Windows program was used for statistical analysis.
Results: Two hundred and fifty nine patients were included in the study. Thirty-day mortality occurred in 20% of 259 patients. The mean age of the patients was 66.8. Female patients (54%) were more than the number of males. The most common risk factor was venous thromboembolism in the lower extremities, which was detected in 38.6% of the patients. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red blood cell distribution width levels, which are among the hematological parameters of the patients, were associated with mortality (p=0.001). Receiver operating characteristic analysis of NLR for mortality revealed a cut-off value of >4.
Conclusion: NLR is associated with mortality in APE. We also determined that NLR, which is an inexpensive and easy test, is a predictive parameter for mortality. It may be useful to use hematological parameters together with other scorings in determining the prognosis in APE.

Keywords: Acute pulmonary thromboembolism, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, pulmonary embolism severity index