Saddle pulmonary emboli mimicking pulmonary artery dissection

Pulmonary embolism (PE) can be a potentially fatal condition and requires early diagnosis. It is a frequently underdiagnosed, underestimated, and undertreated disease because of various features and nonspecific clinical presentation. Laboratory D-dimer test, lung scan, and echocardiography can help in making the diagnosis. Recently, computed tomography has been most common used for the diagnosis. We report a case of pulmonary embolism mimicking pulmonary artery dissection by initially using images from computed tomography. Further evaluation of the computed tomographic images using coronal plane confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. Because the treatment modalities are completely different between the 2 diseases, we emphasize that 2 different orthogonal planes are necessary for diagnosis using computed tomographic image examination.