title: Pulmonary embolism severity index accurately predicts long-term mortality rate in patients hospitalized for acute pulmonary embolism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Pulmonary Embolism (PE) Severity Index (PESI) is a clinical prognostic rule that accurately classifies PE patients into five risk classes with increasing mortality. PESI score has been validated in studies with a relatively short-term follow-up and its accuracy in predicting long-term prognosis has never been established.
  
  
  METHODS
  Consecutive patients admitted to the tertiary care hospital of Varese (Italy) with an objectively diagnosed PE between January 2005 and December 2009 were retrospectively included. Information on clinical presentation, diagnostic work-up, risk factors, treatment and mortality during a 1-year follow-up was collected.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five hundred and thirty-eight patients were enrolled in this study. The mean age was 70.6 years (± SD 15.2), 44.4% of patients were male, and 27.9% had known cancer. One-year follow-up was available for 96.1% of patients. The overall mortality rate was 23.2% at 3 months, 30.2% at 6 months and 37.1% at 12 months. The discriminatory power of the PESI score to predict long-term mortality, expressed as the area under the ROC curve, was 0.77 (95%CI, 0.72-0.81) at 3 months, 0.77 (95%CI, 0.73-0.81) at 6 months and 0.79 (95%CI, 0.75-0.82) at 12 months. The PESI score confirmed its accurate prediction in patients without cancer. Simplified PESI had a similar overall accuracy to the original PESI at 3 and 6 months, but this was significantly lower at 1 year.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this study suggest that PESI score may also be an accurate tool to define the 6-month and 1-year mortality rates in PE patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Medicine, Insubria University, Varese, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dentali
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Riva
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Turato
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grazioli
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Squizzato
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Steidl
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guasti
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Grandi
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ageno
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: clinical prediction rule; follow-up study; mortality; prognosis; pulmonary embolism