Gender differences in the symptoms, signs, disease history, lesion position and pathophysiology in patients with pulmonary embolism

Abstract

Advances in research relating to pulmonary embolisms (PE) can assist physicians in selecting the best management strategies for PE patients. However, the symptoms, signs, disease history, lesion position and pathophysiology linked to different genders in patients with PE have rarely been evaluated. One hundred and forty-nine PE patients (73 males and 76 females) were sequentially recruited to this study over the last five years whilst attending our Emergency Department. Data relating to the symptoms, signs, disease history, biochemical testing, cardiac electrophysiology, imaging detection, treatment and outcome were collected and the gender differences were analyzed. We found that embolisms occurred significantly more frequently in the right lung (89.7%) than in the left lung (42.6%). The presence of dyspnea, the number of patients presenting with tumors, the number of patients with chronic pulmonary disease, those with emboli in the right pulmonary artery and emboli in the right lung, as well as the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure were: 78.1%, 15.1%, 31.5%, 32.9%, 94.5%, 129.9+20.0 and 75.0+11.2 in the male patients and 59.2%, 1.3%, 14.5%, 17.1%, 69.7%, 125.1+14.6 and 69.3+11.0 in the female patients. These indicators were found to be significantly higher in male patients. In contrast, the rate of V1-V4 T-wave inversion and level of D-dimer in the blood were significantly lower in males than in females. No significant difference was observed in the remaining observational indicators. Gender differences regarding the symptoms, signs, disease history, lesion position and pathophysiology exist in patients with PE and should be considered in clinical practice.