[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%. Thrombolysis resulted in open blood vessels and a disappearance of the complaints. A 51-year-old woman presented with profound hypoxemia, probably due to a patent foramen ovale, with shunting and tachycardia. Perfusion defects on scintigraphy combined with a normal chest radiograph in the absence of pre-existent pulmonary disease established the diagnosis. She responded favourably to intravenous streptokinase. The third patient was an 80-year-old woman with hypertension. She developed dyspnoea, tachycardia and shock following immobilisation due to a fractured hip. Despite an initial improvement on streptokinase, she deteriorated and died from right-sided heart failure. The diagnostic tests should be limited and aimed at ruling out left-sided heart failure and pericardial tamponade. 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.