TY - JOUR T1 - BEdside noninvasive detection of acute pulmonary embolism in critically ill surgical patients AU - Anderson JT, Owings JT, Goodnight JE Y1 - 1999/08/01 N1 - 10.1001/archsurg.134.8.869 JO - Archives of Surgery SP - 869 EP - 875 VL - 134 IS - 8 N2 - Hypothesis  We hypothesized that late pulmonary dead space fraction (Fdlate) would be a useful tool to screen for pulmonary embolism (PE) in a group of surgical patients, including patients who required mechanical ventilation and patients with adult respiratory distress syndrome.Design  We prospectively calculated Fdlate in patients with suspected PE who underwent pulmonary angiography.Setting  University-based, level I trauma center.Main Outcome Measure  Ability of Fdlate to identify patients with PE.Results  Twelve patients had 14 angiograms for suspected PE. The Fdlate was 0.12 or above in all 5 patients who had PE; 4 required mechanical ventilation. The Fdlate values were below 0.12 in 8 of 9 patients without PE. Four patients had adult respiratory distress syndrome. The Fdlate had 100% sensitivity and 89% specificity for the detection of PE.Conclusions  The Fdlate is a valuable tool for bedside screening of PE in surgical patients. We were able to accurately detect all PEs. SN - 0004-0010 M3 - doi: 10.1001/archsurg.134.8.869 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.134.8.869 ER -