BY MAHIR ELDER, MD, FACC, FSCAI, AND TERRY BOWERS, MD, FACC, FSCAI
A review of interventional thrombolytic and catheter-based therapies for PE treatment.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a growing field in endovascular intervention with a robust ongoing search for the endovascular “holy grail” to treat this life-threatening disease. Patients presenting with PE are now routinely risk-stratified with PE response team (PERT) algorithms to identify those with hemodynamic instability and right ventricular (RV) dysfunction. For patients with intermediate-high and high-risk features characterized by European Society of Cardiology criteria, care is escalated with systemic thrombolysis or endovascular approaches.
