Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde
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Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd · Jul 2001
Review Case Reports[Three patients with massive pulmonary embolism].
Three patients presenting with massive venous pulmonary thrombo-embolism are described, who have been selected from a series of 22 patients treated with thrombolysis during a 6-year period. A 23-year-old female presented with tachycardia and dyspnoea. She had pulmonary angiography following scintigraphy with a perfusion deficit of more than 60%. ⋯ Echocardiography is often diagnostic in these patients. Thrombolysis may be life saving but there are no randomised trials to prove that survival rate is indeed better compared to heparin therapy. Streptokinase is less expensive than alteplase and there is no evidence from trials to suggest that it is inferior to more expensive thrombolytics such as alteplase or urokinase.