Increasing Rate of Pulmonary Embolism in Trauma Patients at a Level One Trauma Center: An Opportunity for Quality Improvement?

Introduction Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the most common cause of preventable hospital death in trauma patients, with 100,000 patients dying from PE annually. A steadily increasing PE rate was observed over seven years in the trauma population at a single level one trauma center. Our study seeks to analyze this trend by examining risk factors and searching for targets for improvement. We hypothesized that a change in one or more modifiable risk factors was associated with the increased PE rate.  Methods This retrospective cohort study considered trauma patients admitted to our trauma center between 2012 and 2018. The change in PE rate over time and correlation with various risk factors were examined using logistic regression. The study population was divided into two cohorts: early (2012-2015), and late (2016-2018). Data were collected from a prospectively maintained trauma database. More detailed information was obtained from individual patient charts for 533 patients worked up for PE. Risk factors were evaluated using both univariate and multivariate analysis. Results A total of 14,986 trauma patients were included in the study, of which 132 were diagnosed with PE. The PE rate was 1.11% in the late group compared to 0.67% in the early group (p=.004). We detected no association between the PE rate and preventive measures such as screening for and treating deep venous thrombosis (DVT), placing inferior vena cava (IVC) filters, and patterns of chemical DVT prophylaxis. We did not observe a distal migration of the anatomic distribution of PEs on CT pulmonary angiogram (CTPA). There were nonsignificant trends between PE rate and changes in population demographics and injury patterns, increased frequency of major surgery, and increased tranexamic acid (TXA) use. Of known risk factors for PE, units of packed red blood cells (PRBC) (p=0.041), units of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) (p=.037), and the number of patients receiving transfusion (p=0.043) were all significantly greater in the later period. Conclusion Change in hemostatic resuscitation practices (use of balanced ratios of blood products) is most likely to have contributed to the increased PE rate at our institution. However, PE in trauma is multifactorial, and the increased rate cannot be attributed to any single factor. We did not observe a lapse in preventive measures commonly considered indices of quality of care. Caution is advised against overreliance on PE rate as a measure of quality.