Factors influencing the clinical diagnosis of pulmonary embolism: analysis of 229 postmortem cases.

Although appreciable advances have been made in understanding epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment, acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is still largely undetected and untreated. The aim of our study was to ascertain whether the rate of correct clinical diagnosis of acute PE has changed in recent years (from 1989 to 1995) and, possibly, to identify factors that might contribute to the underdiagnosis of the disease.