ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Computed Tomographic Pulmonary Angiography vs Ventilation-Perfusion Lung Scanning in Patients With Suspected Pulmonary Embolism A Randomized Controlled Trial

PULMONARY EMBOLISM IS A COM-mon and serious medical con-dition leading to the hospital-ization or death of more than 250 000 people in the United States each year.1 It is the third leading cause of cardiovascular mortality and is esti-mated to result in 5 % to 10 % of all deaths in US hospitals.2 Despite the po-tentially lethal nature of this condi-tion, pulmonary embolism remains one of the most difficult conditions for cli-nicians to diagnose accurately.3 Given the highmortality of untreated pulmo-nary embolism, timely accurate diag-nostic tests are essential to enable theFor editorial comment see p 2788. Author Affiliations are listed at the end of this article