Current approaches to diagnosis, treatment and prevention of pulmonary embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is one of the most common diseases, comparable in frequency with acute coronary syndrome, and is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular mortality. The high mortality associated with pulmonary embolism (PE) is determined by the severity of the disease and the difficulties of diagnosis and in large part by a lack of awareness of doctors on standards for primary prevention.The last decade has been marked by qualitative improvement in the efficiency of diagnosis of pulmonary embolism, which resulted from the achievements in echocardiography and increased availability of computer tomography imaging in real practice. The list of availbale anticoagulant drugs which are the basis of pathogenetic treatment, secondary and primary prevention of pulmonary embolism expanded significantly. The present review covers the principles of diagnosis, therapy and prevention of this disease.