Nosher JL, Patel A, Jagpal S, Gribbin C, Gendel V. Endovascular treatment of pulmonary embolism: Selective review of available techniques. World J Radiol 2017; 9(12): 426-437 [PMID: 29354208 DOI: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i12.426]
Corresponding Author of This Article
John L Nosher, MD, Division of Interventional Radiology, Department of Radiology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 1 Robert Wood Johnson Place, MEB404, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States. nosher@rwjms.rutgers.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Radiol. Dec 28, 2017; 9(12): 426-437 Published online Dec 28, 2017. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i12.426
Endovascular treatment of pulmonary embolism: Selective review of available techniques
John L Nosher, Arjun Patel, Sugeet Jagpal, Christopher Gribbin, Vyacheslav Gendel
John L Nosher, Arjun Patel, Christopher Gribbin, Vyacheslav Gendel, Division of Interventional Radiology, Department of Radiology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States
Sugeet Jagpal, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting, critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest. No financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: John L Nosher, MD, Division of Interventional Radiology, Department of Radiology, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 1 Robert Wood Johnson Place, MEB404, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States. nosher@rwjms.rutgers.edu
Telephone: +1-732-2357721
Received: July 18, 2017 Peer-review started: July 20, 2017 First decision: August 4, 2017 Revised: August 11, 2017 Accepted: September 3, 2017 Article in press: September 3, 2017 Published online: December 28, 2017 Processing time: 160 Days and 7.4 Hours
Abstract
Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is the third most common cause of death in hospitalized patients. The development of sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for PE, including endovascular therapy, affords a certain level of complexity to the treatment of patients with this important clinical entity. Furthermore, the lack of level I evidence for the safety and effectiveness of catheter directed therapy brings controversy to a promising treatment approach. In this review paper, we discuss the pathophysiology and clinical presentation of PE, review the medical and surgical treatment of the condition, and describe in detail the tools that are available for the endovascular therapy of PE, including mechanical thrombectomy, suction thrombectomy, and fibrinolytic therapy. We also review the literature available to date on these methods, and describe the function of the Pulmonary Embolism Response Team.
Core tip: Endovascular treatment of pulmonary embolism (PE) represents several methods of minimally invasive therapy of this important clinical entity, including mechanical thrombectomy, suction thrombectomy, and fibrinolytic therapy. With this paper, we hope to provide a detailed review of these methods, which is critical to understanding the tools that are available to the clinician for the treatment of PE.
