Portable Ventilation/Perfusion Scanning is Useful for Evaluating Clinically Significant Pulmonary Embolism in the ICU Despite Abnormal Chest Radiography.

Despite the large percentage of moderate-to-severe x-ray abnormalities, PE can still be diagnosed (high-probability scan) in the ICU with a portable V/Q scan. Although low-probability scans do not rule out acute PE, it appeared less likely that any patient with a low-probability V/Q scan had severe hypoxemia or hemodynamic instability due to a significant PE, which was useful to clinicians and allowed them to either stop or not start anticoagulation.