A 29-year-old woman presented to her general practitioner (GP) 3 with progressive dyspnea for 2 months. Her only relevant medical history was asthma, normally well-controlled on inhaled corticosteroids. Her physical examination was unremarkable, and her Wells score for pulmonary embolism, a clinical pretest probability score, was low. Her GP requested a D-dimer to exclude a pulmonary embolism, which was >4000 μg/L [cutoff <500 μg/L fibrinogen equivalent units (FEU)], using the Siemens INNOVANCE™ D-dimer immunoturbidimetric method. Because of her increased D-dimer, she was admitted to the hospital for investigation of suspected pulmonary embolism. Repeat D-dimer in hospital using the same assay was also >4000 μg/L. Other routine laboratory tests, including coagulation screen, full blood count, creatinine, liver function tests, C-reactive protein, glucose, and rheumatoid factor were normal. Her chest radiograph and subsequent computed tomography pulmonary angiogram were both normal. She was discharged to the care of her GP with a course of prednisone for a presumed asthma exacerbation. The GP continued to monitor her Ddimer levels, which remained grossly increased (2670, 3020, and 2590 μg/L). Testing was carried out by a new community laboratory provider using
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