Deceased elderly in-patients with pulmonary embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) in the elderly is an immediate threat of life. Especially in old age clinical signs of PE are non-specific and could be both underestimated and overestimated.

The retrospective long-term study was aimed at conducting an analysis and comparison of pertinent influence of age, gender and immobility on occurrence of PE and sudden death.

Between 1995 and 2012 years we had altogether 12,746 elderly patients of an average age 80.6 ± 7.0 y (range 65-103 y) hospitalized at the Department of Geriatrics. All in-patients 65+ y were randomly admitted for internal hospitalization from the catchment area of Brno city (100,000 inhabitants). The subject of our interest was to study the documentation of deaths (including autopsy findings), which was caused by PE. Out of this number there were 8,540 women (66.3 %) and 4,206 men (33.7 %). Among all hospitalized patients PE in 700 cases (5.5 % of all admitted patients) was shown in a medical report. Among them there were 424 survivors (60.6 %; 134 men and 290 women).

The high occurrence of PE (particularly silent form) has crucial importance in the elderly mortality. Our recommendations would like to emphasize the need of no underestimation of this fact and to carry out preventive measures in all age groups (including the "oldest old" and frail persons) (Tab. 3, Ref. 41).