• David A Froehling, Paul R Daniels, Stephen J Swensen, John A Heit, Jayawant N Mandrekar, Jay H Ryu, and Peter L Elkin.
• Division of General Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. froehling.david@mayo.edu
• Mayo Clin. Proc. 2007 May 1; 82 (5): 556-60.

ObjectiveTo determine the sensitivity and specificity of a quantitative plasma fibrin D-dimer latex immunoassay (LIA) for the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism.Subjects And MethodsStudy subjects were Mayo Clinic Rochester inpatients and outpatients with suspected acute pulmonary embolism; all had undergone quantitative D-dimer LIA testing and multidetector-row computed tomographic (CT) angiography between August 3, 2001, and November 10, 2003. Multidetector-row CT angiography was the diagnostic reference standard.ResultsOf 1355 CT studies, 208 (15%) were positive for acute pulmonary embolism. Median D-dimer levels were significantly higher for patients with acute pulmonary embolism (1425 ng/mL) than for patients without (500 ng/mL) (P<.001). The highest specificity that optimizes sensitivity for acute pulmonary embolism was achieved by using a discriminant value of 300 ng/mL, which yielded a sensitivity of 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.89-0.97), a specificity of 0.27 (95% CI, 0.25-0.30), and a negative predictive value of 0.96 (95% CI, 0.93-0.98).ConclusionThe quantitative D-dimer LIA with a discriminant value of 300 ng/mL had high sensitivity and high negative predictive value but low specificity for the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism. On the basis of these results, we believe that a negative quantitative D-dimer LIA result and a low pretest probability of thromboembolism together are sufficient to exclude acute pulmonary embolism.

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