Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us

Clinical Medicine Journal

  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
RCP Journals
Home
  • Log in
  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us
Advanced

Clinical Medicine Journal

clinmedicine Logo
  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

The association of pleural effusion and pulmonary embolism

Oscar Jolobe
Download PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmed.Let.22.2.1
Clin Med March 2022
Oscar Jolobe
Retired geriatrician, Manchester, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
Loading

Editor – When pleural effusion occurs as a manifestation of pulmonary embolism, this occurrence should generate an opportunity to implement the ultrasonographic pathway for the workup of suspected pulmonary embolism.1 The first step in that pathway is to perform thoracic ultrasound (TUS) to ascertain whether or not the pleural effusion is attributable to pulmonary infarction. On ultrasonography, the majority of pulmonary infarcts are wedge shaped, but some may either be round or polygonal. Colour Doppler distinguishes pulmonary infarcts from lesions attributable to pneumonia, metastasis or peripheral lung mass.2

Ultrasonographic evaluation of all four limbs (for deep vein thrombosis (DVT)) should be the next step in the ultrasonographic pathway. The association of proven DVT and TUS-validated pulmonary infarction should suffice to justify initiation of anticoagulant therapy, thereby obviating the need for further imaging by computed tomography and angiography. That ‘short cut’ strategy would be uniquely applicable to the hypothetical patient in Ramjug and Phillips’ vignette if his chest pain was pleuritic in nature because, in the context of suspected pulmonary embolism, patients with pleuritic chest pain are the ones most likely to have identifiable pulmonary infarcts on TUS.

  • © Royal College of Physicians 2022. All rights reserved.

References

  1. ↵
    1. Li D
    , Ajmal S, Tufail M, Panchal RK. Modern day management of a unilateral pleural effusion. Clin Med 2021;21:e561–6.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  2. ↵
    1. Ghanem MK
    , Makhlouf HA, Hasan AAA, Alkarn AA. Acute pulmonary thromboembolism in emergency room: gray-scale versus color doppler ultrasound evaluation. Clin Respir J 2018;12:474–82.
    OpenUrlPubMed
    1. Ramjug S
    , Phillips G. Update in the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism for the non-respiratory physician. Clin Med 2021;21:e591–7.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
Back to top
Previous articleNext article

Article Tools

Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
The association of pleural effusion and pulmonary embolism
Oscar Jolobe
Clinical Medicine Mar 2022, 22 (2) 187; DOI: 10.7861/clinmed.Let.22.2.1

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
The association of pleural effusion and pulmonary embolism
Oscar Jolobe
Clinical Medicine Mar 2022, 22 (2) 187; DOI: 10.7861/clinmed.Let.22.2.1
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • References
  • Info & Metrics

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • What is the impact of COVID-19 on complaints against doctors?
  • The significance of the gut microbiome in post-COVID-19 gastrointestinal symptoms
  • Optimisation of strategies for management of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction
Show more Letters to the editor

Similar Articles

FAQs

  • Difficulty logging in.

There is currently no login required to access the journals. Please go to the home page and simply click on the edition that you wish to read. If you are still unable to access the content you require, please let us know through the 'Contact us' page.

  • Can't find the CME questionnaire.

The read-only self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) can be found after the CME section in each edition of Clinical Medicine. RCP members and fellows (using their login details for the main RCP website) are able to access the full SAQ with answers and are awarded 2 CPD points upon successful (8/10) completion from:  https://cme.rcplondon.ac.uk

Navigate this Journal

  • Journal Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive

Related Links

  • ClinMed - Home
  • FHJ - Home
clinmedicine Footer Logo
  • Home
  • Journals
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
HighWire Press, Inc.

Follow Us:

  • Follow HighWire Origins on Twitter
  • Visit HighWire Origins on Facebook

Copyright © 2021 by the Royal College of Physicians