Incidental Discovery of Pulmonary Emboli Via CT Scan: Impact of Detections on Patient Care and Resulting Complications

In recent years, with an increase in the frequency of CT examinations, there has also been an increase in the random discovery of pulmonary emboli, often small, as part of examinations performed for other indications. Most of the literature so far deals with the discovery of such findings mainly in oncological patients, and there is relatively little information regarding the frequency of such random discovery in other patient populations. Specifically in the intensive care patient population, we have not yet found any study that examined the detection rates of these findings. Also, there is no consensus regarding how these random findings should be treated from a therapeutic point of view (whether to start treatment with full anticoagulation, and if so, for what period of time). Random pulmonary embolism is often discovered as part of a CT scan done to assess acute lung disease or lung