thrombolysis in pulmonary embolism (PE)

Last edited 05/2020

NICE suggest (1):

  • pharmacological systemic thrombolytic therapy should be considered for people with PE and haemodynamic instability
  • do not offer pharmacological systemic thrombolytic therapy to people with PE and haemodynamic stability with or without right ventricular dysfunction

Systemic thrombolytic therapy is recommended for high-risk PE (2):

  • a meta-analysis of thrombolysis trials that included (but were not confined to) patients with high-risk PE, defined mainly as the presence of cardiogenic shock, indicated a significant reduction in the combined outcome of mortality and recurrent PE. This was achieved with a 9.9% rate of severe bleeding and a 1.7% rate of intracranial aemorrhage

Reference: