Software helps predict mortality in patients who have had acute pulmonary embolism

The tool was considered promising to be a predictor of mortality in patients with acute pulmonary embolism – Photo: Researcher / Reproduction – Photomontage / Jornal da USP
Acute pulmonary embolism (EPA) is the third leading cause of mortality worldwide. The condition is characterized by the obstruction of the arteries of the lung by a blood clot. Patients with this disease evolve in a heterogeneous manner. That is, they may have excellent recovery or progress to circulatory shock, cardiac arrest and death.

To assist the medical team in prognostic stratification and decision-making about treatment, researchers from USP’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP) evaluated the use of automated software to quantify pulmonary vascular volume (PVV) in patients with EPA and considered the tool promising to be a predictor of mortality in these patients.


Professor Carlos Henrique Miranda, from the Emergency Medicine sector at FMRP – Photo: Personal archive
“ Currently, computed angiotomography (angio-CT) is considered the gold standard method for diagnosis. However, in clinical practice, the parameters used for prognostic evaluation have little association with mortality and development of circulatory shock ”, says Professor Carlos Henrique Miranda, from the Emergency Medicine sector at FMRP and one of the authors of the Estimated Pulmonary Vascular Volume study by Automated Software is a Predictor of Mortality after Acute Pulmonary Embolism , which was awarded as the best original article of 2020 in the Brazilian Archives of Cardiology by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC).

This research evaluated patients who were admitted to the emergency department of Hospital das Clínicas da FMRP (HCFMRP) between January 2009 and December 2015 with the primary diagnosis of EPA. The researchers used the Yacta software, developed by researcher Oliver Weinheimer, from the University Hospital Heidelberg in Germany and one of the authors of the work, to automatically quantify the VVP in the angio-CT images.

It was the first time that the software was used in studies related to the EPA. “This result is important for the development of tools that help in the medical routine to provide an individualized treatment according to the risk of complications”, concludes Professor Miranda.

The study also included the participation of professors Antonio Pazin Filho, Marcel Koenigkam Santos and Valdair Francisco Muglia, all from FMRP.