These are the 2019 European Society of Cardiology and European Respiratory Society Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Acute Pulmonary Embolism. I must say, these are my favorite guidelines for PE and they came out just a few weeks ago on August 31st. It seems as if PE is just on every differential, as it respectfully should be, on anyone who is hypotensive with chest pain and short of breath. You definitely have to think about it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs a CTA of the chest to rule it out. Many times a good history and physical can rule it out.

The images in this article is where much of the value is. The flowcharts simplify the thought process. I encourage those of you who have the ability to learn how to do some simple echocardiography to learn the skills of at least finding the windows. You’ll be able to gain a TON of information just by laying the probe on the chest. This is one of those PDFs that you should definitely have accessible and refer to it often until you basically have these guidelines memorized.

A big hat tip to the authors. Again, I LOVE this paper.

-EJ

2019 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism developed in collaboration with the European Respiratory Society (ERS)