A Study of Pulmonary Embolism

Abstract

A number of theories have been advanced to explain the cause of the two types of pain, pleural and anginal, which occur in embolism of the pulmonary artery. A discussion of these has assumed increasing importance in recent years, because pulmonary embolism has now become the most frequently encountered lesion of the lung in general hospitals,¹since modern drug and antibiotic therapy have greatly reduced the incidence of infectious diseases of the lung. The clinicopathological observations here recorded deal with the mechanisms involved in the two types of pain. The data were obtained from a study of 385 patients autopsied at the New York Hospital. Of these, 100 were instances of massive pulmonary embolism (<i>A Study of Pulmonary Embolism:</i>Part I, Table 1), with large emboli in the main stem, the two major branches, or in a single major branch, while 100 were examples of medium-sized smaller emboli occluding