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DOI: 10.1160/TH05-12-0791
Clinical usefulness of D-dimer testing in cancer patients with suspected pulmonary embolism
Financial support: The two studies that were used in this work were supported by a grant from the Hirsch Fund of the University of Geneva, a grant (32–61773.00) from the Swiss National Research Foundation; grants 97/4-T10 and 00/4-T9 from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Canada; a grant from La Fondation Québécoise pour le Progrès de la Médecine Interne and Les Internistes et Rhumatologues Associés de l’Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur, Montreal, Canada; and grant 2001/021 from the Direction of Clinical Research of the Angers University Hospital.Publication History
Received
07 December 2005
Accepted after revision
27 February 2006
Publication Date:
30 November 2017 (online)
![](https://www.thieme-connect.de/media/10.1055-s-00035024/200604/lookinside/thumbnails/10-1160-th05-12-0791-1.jpg)
Summary
Limited data are available about the diagnostic value of D-dimer testing in cancer patients with clinically suspected pulmonary embolism (PE).Therefore, we evaluated i) the safety and clinical usefulness of an ELISA D-dimer test to rule out PE in cancer patients compared with non-cancer patients and ii) whether adopting a higher D-dimer cut-off value might increase the usefulness of D-dimer in cancer patients. We analysed data from two outcome studies which enrolled 1,721 consecutive patients presenting in the emergency department with clinically suspected PE. Presence of an active malignancy was abstracted from the database. All patients underwent a sequential diagnostic work-up including an ELISA D-dimer test and a 3-month followup. Sensitivity and predictive value (NPV) were 100% in both cancer and non-cancer patients. PE was ruled out by a negative D-dimer test in 494/1,554 (32%) patients without cancer, and in 18/164 (11%) patients witha malignancy. At cut-off values varying from 500 to 900 µg/l, the sensitivity was unchanged (100%, 95% CI: 93% to 100%) and the specificity increased from 16% (95% CI:11% to 24%) to 30% (95% CI:22% to 39%).The 3-month thromboembolic risk was 0% (95 % CI: 0% to 18%) in cancer patients witha negative D-dimer test. ELISA D-dimer appears safe to rule out pulmonary embolism in cancer patients but it is negative in only one of ten patients at the usual cut-off value. Increasing the cut-off value of D-dimer in cancer patients might increase the test’s clinical usefulness.
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