The index of suspicion for iron deficiency in non-anaemic subjects

摘要

Editor – The point is well made that increased use of computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) in patients with low pretest probability of pulmonary embolism (PE) might pose unnecessary risk of harm to patients, and might also be an inappropriate use of scarce resources. On the other hand, when pretest probability of PE is sufficiently high, based on the presence of symptoms, ultrasonographically validated deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and D-dimer cut-off levels compliant with those proposed by Tuck et al, identification of stigmata of PE by point-of-care transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) might be a satisfactory alternative to CTPA.