PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kumar, Arun
AU  - Moadel, Renée M.
AU  - Haramati, Linda B.
AU  - Ye, Kenny
AU  - Freeman, Leonard M.
AU  - Zuckier, Lionel S.
TI  - Experience with a Perfusion-Only Screening Protocol for Evaluation of Pulmonary Embolism During the COVID-19 Pandemic Surge
AID  - 10.2967/jnumed.121.262580
DP  - 2022 Apr 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine
PG  - 598--601
VI  - 63
IP  - 4
4099  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/63/4/598.short
4100  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/63/4/598.full
SO  - J Nucl Med2022 Apr 01; 63
AB  - The purpose of this study was to evaluate a pulmonary embolism (PE) perfusion-only screening (POS) protocol introduced during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surge. Subjects without dense parenchymal lung opacities were studied; those with less than 1 segmental perfusion defect were considered to have no PE, whereas those exhibiting 1 or more defects were indeterminate, mandating additional examinations to determine the final diagnosis. Methods: We analyzed demographic information, clinical data, imaging findings, and follow-up data from the electronic records of COVID-19 patients who underwent lung scintigraphy during the 60-d study period. Results: In total, 53 studies were performed on 17 COVID-19–positive and 36 COVID-19–negative patients. The POS protocol efficiently excluded PE in 79% of cases; the remaining 21%, indeterminate for PE, were generally referred for alternative testing or were directly anticoagulated. In patients with negative POS results, there was a very low mortality before hospital discharge (1/42) and normal results on follow-up studies (6/6). Conclusion: The POS protocol, implemented during the COVID-19 surge, efficiently and safely excluded PE in 79% of patients.