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bolic disease from the non-PE group. D-dimer, platelet count, and, C reactive protein values were significantly higher among PE patients. D-dimer values correlated with the radiologic magnitude of PE (p<0.001). Conclusions Patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and D-dimer values higher than 1 μg/mL presented a high prevalence of PE, regardless of clinical suspicion. We consider that these findings could contribute to improve the prognosis of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, by initiating anticoagulant therapy when a PE is found.

Objective: To determine the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors of pulmonary embolism (PE) among patients hospitalized for COVID-19. Patients and Methods: We performed a prospective observational study of a randomly selected cohort of consecutive patients hospitalized for COVID-19 infection between March 8, 2020 through April 25, 2020. All eligible patients underwent a computed tomography pulmonary angiography independently of their PE clinical suspicion and were pre-screened for a baseline elevated D-dimer level. Results: 119 patients were randomly selected from the 372 admitted to one tertiary hospital in Valencia (Spain) for COVID-19 infection during the period of study. Seventy-three patients fulfilled both the inclusion criteria and none of the exclusion criteria and were finally included in the study. Despite a high level of pharmacological thromboprophylaxis (89%), the incidence of PE was 35.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 29.6 to 41.6%), mostly with a peripheral location and low thrombotic load (Qanadli score 18.5%). Multivariate analysis showed that heart rate (Hazard Ratio [HR], 1.04), room-air oxygen saturation (spO2) (HR, 0.87), D-dimer (HR, 1.02), and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (HR, 1.01) at the time of admission were independent predictors of incident PE during hospitalization. A risk score was constructed with these four variables showing a high predictive value of incident PE (AUC-ROC: 0.86; 95% CI: 0.80 to 0.93). Conclusions: Our findings confirmed a high incidence of PE in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Heart rate, spO2, D-dimer, and CRP levels at admission were associated with higher rates of PE during hospitalization.

BackgroundAsthma-COPD overlap (ACO) is a term that encompasses patients with characteristics of two conditions, smoking asthmatics or COPD patients with asthma-like features such as high bronchodilator response or blood eosinophil count ≥300 cells/μL. The aim of this study was to compare the different phenotypes inside the ACO definition in a real-life population cohort.MethodsWe analyzed patients from the MAJORICA cohort who had a diagnosis of asthma and/or COPD based on current guidelines, laboratory data in 2014 and follow-up until 2015. Prevalence of ACO according to the different criteria, demographic, clinical and functional characteristics, prescriptions and use of health resources data were compared between three groups.ResultsWe included 603 patients. Prevalence of smoking asthmatics was 14%, COPD patients with high bronchodilator response 1.5% and eosinophilic COPD patients 12%. Smoking asthmatics were younger and used more rescue inhalers, corticosteroids and health resources. Conversely, eosinophilic COPD patients were older than the other groups, often treated with corticosteroids and had lower use of health resources. Most of the COPD patients with high bronchodilator response were included in the eosinophilic COPD group.ConclusionsACO includes two conditions (smoking asthmatics and eosinophilic COPD patients) with different medication requirement and prognosis that should not be pooled together. Use of ≥300 blood eosinophils/μL as a treatable trait should be recommended.