Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Blood clots in the lungs are known as pulmonary embolism. In Canada, many of these blood clots are diagnosed in the emergency department. It is important that they are diagnosed quickly because without treatment, they can lead to permanent tiredness, breathlessness, and death. When testing for blood clots in the lungs, emergency doctors are supposed to run a complex set of tests which can be difficult to follow in the emergency department. We found that doctors often order a lung scan instead which uses radiation, takes time and costs money. We also found that patients tested for blood clots expect individual care, proper testing and want their physician to be confident making the blood clot diagnosis. Based on this work, we have developed a new way to test for blood clots in the lungs which is easy and fast to use. This test can tell doctors that there is no blood clot without the patient needing a lung scan. The test involves a blood test called D-dimer. We implemented this new blood clot test in our local emergency department and urgent care centre and studied a group of 200 patients who were tested with our new process over a three month period. These results will be used to prepare for a large scale version of this study, which will standardize blood clot testing and benefit emergency doctors and patients across Canada.