TY - JOUR T1 - End-tidal CO<sub>2</sub> for exclusion of suspected pulmonary embolism: a new partner for Wells? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 723 LP - 724 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00164309 VL - 35 IS - 4 AU - D. Bonderman AU - I. M. Lang Y1 - 2010/04/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/35/4/723.abstract N2 - Pulmonary embolism (PE) has been labelled as one of the leading causes of cardiovascular death in the Western World 1 and, still today, more than 40,000 patients in Germany and 200,000 in the USA die of acute PE each year. However, hospital mortality rates can fall from as high as 30% to 8% 2 when diagnosis and treatment are properly provided. The diagnosis of PE remains a challenge because of highly variable clinical symptoms. Consequently, the diagnosis of PE has been finally confirmed in &lt;35% of patients with a clinical suspicion of PE 3. A simple bedside test with the ability to exclude PE in patients who do not have it, while not overlooking true-positive cases, is desired and will prevent unnecessary exposure to contrast agents and radiation. The assessment of alveolar dead space ventilation and the expired tracer gas CO2 as surrogates for pulmonary vascular obstruction have been proposed as valuable tools for excluding PE. The underlying pathophysiological principle is based on the three-compartment model of the … ER -