Diagnostic and therapeutic models for the management of acute pulmonary embolism: an issue of local available resources

Abstract

Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) still represents the third leading cause of cardiovascular mortality in developed countries. In this regard, the last European guidelines offer important suggestions on the management of the disease in daily clinical practice but, at the same time, they do not take into account the feasibility of the recommendations according to the local available resources, including the presence or lack of adequate healthcare facilities (cardiological intensive care unit, cath-lab) or specialists (cardiologist available on a 24 h basis, interventional cardiologist, cardiac surgeon, etc.) all over the day. In the real clinical practice, those recommendations should be adapted to the local available resources. The aim of this document is to provide some suggestions regarding the diagnosis and treatment of acute PE, according to the possible available resources in different local circumstances.