Table 1.
Summary of findings comparing diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) in the pre- and postprotocol periods
| Variable | Percent of TJAs* | Percent positive scans of TJAs worked up | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre | Post | p value | Pre | Post | p value | ||
| Test | CT | 3.64 | 3.34 | 0.3356 | 26.24 | 37.36 | 0.0110† |
| VQ | 1.19 | 0.75 | 0.0113† | 10.71 | 10.26 | 1.0 | |
| Overall | 4.63 | 4.01 | 0.0784‡ | 23.17 | 32.54 | 0.0129† | |
| Type of PE | Segmental | 0.87 | 1.05 | 0.2694 | |||
| Subsegmental | 0.08 | 0.19 | 0.0776‡ | ||||
| Mortality | 30-day | 0.31 | 0.14 | 0.0470† | |||
| 90-day | 0.50 | 0.26 | 0.0206† | ||||
* We report percentage of total TJAs because the two timeframes differed in terms of total number of TJAs. There were 9416 TJAs in the preprotocol period and 5216 in the postprotocol period; †p < 0.05; ‡0.05 < p < 0.10; TJA = total joint arthroplasty; CT = computed tomography; VQ = ventilation-perfusion scan.