• Hernan Polo Friz, Valentina Pezzetti, Annalisa Orenti, Alessandro Caleffi, Valeria Corno, Chiara Crivellari, Francesco Petri, Melisa Polo Friz, Veronica Punzi, Daniela Teruzzi, Luca Cavalieri d'Oro, Cristina Giannattasio, Giuseppe Vighi, Claudio Cimminiello, and Patrizia Boracchi.
• Internal Medicine, Medical Department, Vimercate Hospital, ASST di Vimercate, Vimercate, Italy; Research and Study Center of the Italian Society of Angiology and Vascular Pathology (Società Italiana di Angiologia e Patologia Vascolare, SIAPAV), Milan, Italy. Electronic address: hernanemilio.polofriz@asst-vimercate.it.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2019 May 1; 37 (5): 799-804.

IntroductionThe prognostic accuracy of D-dimer for risk assessment in acute Pulmonary Embolism (APE) patients may be hampered by comorbidities. We investigated the impact of comorbidity burden (CB) by using the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), on the prognostic ability of D-dimer to predict 30 and 90-day mortality in hemodynamically stable elderly patients with APE.MethodsAll patients aged >65 years with normotensive APE, consecutively evaluated in the Emergency Department since 2010 through 2014 were included in this retrospective cohort study. Area under the curve (AUC) and ½ Net Reclassification Improvement (NRI) were calculated.ResultsStudy population: 162 patients, median age: 79.2 years. The optimal cut-off value of CCI score for predicting mortality was ≤1 (Low CB) and >1 (High CB), AUC = 0.786. Higher levels of D-dimer were associated with an increased risk death at 30 (HR = 1.039, 95%CI:1.000-1.080, p = 0.049) and 90 days (HR = 1.039, 95%CI:1.009-1.070, p = 0.012). When added to simplified Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (sPESI) score, D-dimer increased significantly the AUC for predicting 30-day mortality in Low CB (AUC = 0.778, 95%CI:0.620-0.937, ½NRI = 0.535, p = 0.015), but not in High CB patients (AUC = 0.634, 95%CI:0.460-0.807, ½ NRI = 0.248, p = 0.294). Similarly, for 90-day mortality D-dimer increased significantly the AUC in Low CB (AUC = 0.786, 95%CI:0.643-0.929, ½NRI = 0.424, p-value = 0.025), but not in High CB patients (AUC = 0.659, 95%CI:0.541-0.778, ½NRI = 0.354, p-value = 0.165).ConclusionIn elderly patients with normotensive APE, comorbidities condition the prognostic performance of D-dimer, which was found to be a better predictor of death in subjects with low CB. These results support multimarker strategies for risk assessment in this population.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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