Records in which the radiology report gave a “low probability” for PE were searched for patients who had undergone bilateral lower extremity venous ultrasound examinations prior to pulmonary angiography. Those patients in whom the interpretation of the venous ultrasound examination was negative for deep venous thrombosis were included in the study. If the vascular ultrasound examination was technically limited, the patient was excluded.
Lower extremity venous ultrasound examinations routinely consisted of compression sonography of the popliteal, superficial femoral, and common femoral veins as well as evaluation of the Doppler response to respiratory variation and to flow augmentation by calf compression. canadian neighbor pharmacy viagra
Pulmonary arteriography was almost always performed using the common femoral venous approach with a 7.1 French pigtail catheter following the measurement of pressures in the right atrium, right ventricle, and pulmonary artery. Selective right and left pulmonary arteriography was performed with the catheter in the right or left pulmonary artery, respectively, with injection rates of 20 to 25 mL/s for 2 s. The angiographic runs were performed digitally with an acquisition rate of 7.5 frames/s, as previously described.