Referral Patterns and Diagnostic Yield of Lung Scintigraphy in the Diagnosis of Acute Pulmonary Embolism

Table 1

Summary of patient demographics and V/Q scintigraphy results for different referral sources.

	ED	INPT	TCLINIC	OUTPT
N V/Q studies	43	288	351	326
N 1st year	20	142	189	185
N 2nd year	23	146	162	141
N weekdays (%)	33 (76.6)	257 (89.2)	279 (79.5)	311 (95.4)
N weekends (%)	10 (23.3)	31 (10.8)	72 (20.5)	15 (4.6)
N female (%)	26 (60.5)	155 (53.8)	239 (68.1)	216 (66.3)
N pregnant (% of females)	2 (7.7)	16 (10.3)	42 (17.6)	14 (6.5)
Mean age ± SD	53.9 ± 22.6	64.7 ± 19.3	46.3 ± 19.2	58.5 ± 18.9
Age range	20–89	17–99	18–93	18–96
Contrast contraindication	19 (44.2)	172 (59.7)	43 (12.3)	82 (25.2)
N renal failure (%)	18 (41.9)	158 (54.9)	34 (9.7)	73 (22.4)
N contrast allergy (%)	4 (9.3)	28 (7.3)	12 (3.4)	13 (4.0)
N pulmonary hypertension (%)	0 (0.0)	23 (8.0)	1 (0.3)	45 (13.8)
N chronic lung disease (%)	1 (2.3)	55 (19.1)	16 (4.6)	26 (8.0)
N chronic heart failure (%)	3 (7.0)	58 (20.1)	3 (0.9)	23 (7.1)