Interventional Therapies for Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the third leading cause of cardiovascular mortality in the United States. Unfortunately, significant gaps exist in outcome data around many interventional therapies, a fact that is reflected in the low strength of management recommendations found in consensus major society guidelines. In addition to careful risk stratification, therapeutic anticoagulation generally should be an early part of PE management in all cases. For patients presenting with acute high-risk PE or intermediate-risk PE with higher risk features, consideration should be given to systemic thrombolysis after careful evaluation for potential bleeding complications. In patients with contraindications to systemic thrombolysis, failure of this therapy, or significant ongoing cardiopulmonary distress, consideration should be given to interventional therapies like catheter-directed lysis, catheter-directed embolectomy, surgical embolectomy, and mechanical circulatory support. Until more robust comparative outcome data are put forward, pulmonary embolism response teams (PERT) should be considered for multi-disciplinary patient evaluation and management.