The Use of Bedside Ultrasound in the Evaluation of Patients Presenting with Signs and Symptoms of Pulmonary Embolism

Copyright © 2013 Adarsh N. Patel et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Evaluation of patients that present to the emergency department with concerns for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism can be difficult. Modalities including computerized tomography (CT) of the chest, pulmonary angiography, and ventilation perfusion scans can expose patients to large quantities of radiation especially if the study has to be repeated due to poor quality. This is particularly a concern in the pregnant population that has an increased incidence of pulmonary embolism and may not be able to undergo multiple radiographic studies due to fetal radiation exposure. This paper presents a case of a pregnant patient with signs and symptoms concerning pulmonary embolism. The paper discusses the use of bedside ultrasound in the evaluation of patients with pulmonary embolism. 1. Case Presentation A 20-year-old G2P1 pregnant female at 22 weeks from her last menstrual period presents to the emergency department as a transfer patient from an outside hospital. She was evaluated for two days of progressively worse shortness of breath. The major concern at the outside hospital was a pulmonar