• Jung-Wan Yoo, Sang-Bum Hong, Chae-Man Lim, and Younsuck Koh.
• Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Asan Medical Center, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan,Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
• J Crit Care. 2012 Jun 1;27(3):325.e1-6.

PurposeRight ventricular dysfunction (RVD) has been found to have a negative impact on the short-term prognosis of patients with pulmonary embolism (PE). However, the long-term prognosis of such patients has not been well defined. We evaluated the effect of RVD on short- and long-term mortality in Korean patients with PE.Materials And MethodsWe retrospectively assessed 180 patients with PE who underwent transthoracic echocardiography to evaluate RVD between January 2004 and December 2008. Patients were categorized as hemodynamically stable without RVD (stable without RVD, n = 70), hemodynamically stable with RVD (stable with RVD, n = 74), or hemodynamically unstable with RVD (unstable with RVD, n = 36). The clinical courses of all patients were followed up in-hospital and after discharge.ResultsNineteen patients (10.5%) died during hospitalization, with the unstable with RVD group showing the highest rate of in-hospital mortality (27.8%, P < .05) and PE-related deaths (16.7%, P < .05), but no difference in these parameters was noted between the other 2 groups. Multivariate analysis showed that older age and hemodynamic instability were independent risk factors for poor in-hospital outcomes. Eleven patients died after discharge. Multivariate analysis showed that older age, immobilization, and malignancy were independent predictors of long-term mortality.ConclusionRight ventricular dysfunction without hemodynamic instability was not associated with short- or long-term mortality of patients with PE.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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