• Brittany Kirsch, Moez Aziz, Sungita Kumar, Michael Burke, Tyler Webster, Amrutha Immadi, Maurine Sam, Aditya Lal, Rosa M Estrada-Y-Martin, Sujith Cherian, and Gabriel Marcelo Aisenberg.
• Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, The University of Texas, John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern School of Medicine, Houston.
• Am. J. Med. 2021 May 1; 134 (5): 688-690.

BackgroundThe association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and hypercoagulability has been extensively described, and pulmonary embolism is a recognized complication of COVID-19. Currently, the need for computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) relies on the Wells score and serum D-dimer levels. However, because COVID-19 patients have a different thrombotic and inflammatory milieu, the usefulness of the Wells score deserves further exploration for this patient population. We aimed to explore the ability of the Wells score to predict pulmonary embolism in patients with COVID-19.MethodsIn this retrospective study, patients found to have a CTPA and a COVID-19 diagnosis during the same admission were selected for analysis. Age and sex, CTPA results, and associated D-dimer levels were entered in a database. The Wells score sensitivity and specificity were calculated at different values, and the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve measured.ResultsOf 459 patients with COVID-19, 64 had a CTPA and 12 (19%) had evidence of pulmonary embolism. Previous or current evidence of deep vein thrombosis, a Wells score above 4 points, and serum D-dimer levels 5 times above age-adjusted upper normal values were associated with pulmonary embolism. However, only 33% of patients with pulmonary embolism had a Wells score of 4 points or higher. The area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic showed non-discriminating values (0.54) CONCLUSIONS: Although a Wells score of 4 or more points predicted pulmonary embolism in our cohort, the outcome can be present even with lower scores.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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