Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • ERJ Early View
  • Past issues
  • For authors
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Author FAQs
    • Open access
    • COVID-19 submission information
  • Alerts
  • Podcasts
  • Subscriptions
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

User menu

  • Log in
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

Login

European Respiratory Society

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • ERJ Early View
  • Past issues
  • For authors
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Author FAQs
    • Open access
    • COVID-19 submission information
  • Alerts
  • Podcasts
  • Subscriptions

From the authors

  1. C. W. H. Davies
  1. Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Reading, UK.

We would like to thank R. Otero and D. Jiménez for their comments and their support for the principle of outpatient management of pulmonary embolism (PE). However, we are surprised by the tone of their letter. We believe that patients should be considered for ambulatory care for the management of PE after appropriate risk stratification. This can take many forms, such as the criteria developed and used by my group, or use of validated prognostic scores, e.g. PE severity index scores. As stated in the original paper, this score gives a prediction of 30-day mortality rather than the more useful prediction of mortality within the acute low-molecular heparin treatment phase relevant to outpatient treatment of PE, and was also unpublished at the time the study was developed or performed 1.

Systolic arterial hypertension is a prognostic marker and relates to massive or submassive PE. As such, the patients in our study would fulfil other exclusion criteria given in points 1) and 2) of the Exclusion criteria for outpatient treatment section in the Methods of the original article 1.

The number of deaths reported in the data of R. Otero and D. Jiménez suggest that the population in this database who fulfilled our study criteria were somehow different to the actual patients we prospectively sent home for outpatient treatment. This highlights the fact that caution is needed when retrospectively trying to draw conclusions from applying exclusion criteria to a database cohort compared with a prospective cohort.

Patient data suggests that patients prefer to be managed in an ambulatory fashion. Therefore, we believe that with appropriate risk stratification and patient information, we should offer this service to patients who fulfil the criteria quoted in our study 1.

Statement of interest

A statement of interest for C.W.H. Davies can be found at www.erj.ersjournals.com/misc/statements.shtml

    • © ERS Journals Ltd

    References

    1. Davies CWH, Wimperis J, Green ES, et al. Early discharge of patients with pulmonary embolism: a two-phase observational study. Eur Respir J 2007;30:708–714.

    Navigate

    • Home
    • Current issue
    • Archive

    About the ERJ

    • Journal information
    • Editorial board
    • Reviewers
    • CME
    • Press
    • Permissions and reprints
    • Advertising

    The European Respiratory Society

    • Society home
    • myERS
    • Privacy policy
    • Accessibility

    ERS publications

    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS books online
    • ERS Bookshop

    Help

    • Feedback

    For authors

    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • ERS author centre

    For readers

    • Alerts
    • Subjects
    • Podcasts
    • RSS

    Subscriptions

    • Accessing the ERS publications

    Contact us

    European Respiratory Society
    442 Glossop Road
    Sheffield S10 2PX
    United Kingdom
    Tel: +44 114 2672860
    Email: journals@ersnet.org

    ISSN

    Print ISSN:  0903-1936
    Online ISSN: 1399-3003

    Copyright © 2021 by the European Respiratory Society