Pulmonary embolism in Bujumbura

Relevance . Pulmonary embolism constitutes a diagnostic and therapeutic emergency. In Africa, data are still difficult to obtain. Thus, the objectives of this work is to describe epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic aspects and short-term outcomes of pulmonary embolism confirmed by thoracic angioscan at Kira hospital in Bujumbura, the biggest city of Burundi with population about 375 000. Patients and Methods . This was a descriptive study of 18 patients who had a pulmonary embolism confirmed by thoracic angioscan in Bujumbura from January 1st, 2015 to December 31st, 2018. We included in our study any patient with pulmonary embolism consenting to participate and processing personal data after some clarified explanations in accordance with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki. For each registered patient, we collected socio-demographic, past history of cardiac disease and factors risk, clinical, echocardiographic and scannographic findings with Wells’ score. Variables were presented as means and percentages. Results and Discussion. The average age was 53.5 ± 12.3 years with a sex ratio of 1.25 in favor of women. The modal class was the 50 to 59 age group (33.3%). The clinical probability pre-test by simplified Wells score was high in 66.6% and medium in 33.3% of cases. A history of venous thromboembolic disease was the most common risk factor. Dyspnea was the most reason of consultation with 94.4% of cases. One patient died (5.6%) during hospitalization. Six months after discharge from the hospital, we recorded 3 cases (16.7%) of death, 6 cases (33.3%) of pulmonary heart, 3 cases (16.7%) of recurrent pulmonary embolism and one case of vitamin K antagonist overdose with minor bleeding. Conclusion. Pulmonary embolism is common in relatively young population with a predominance of females and chronic no communicable diseases as risk factors. Examination of a patient with an angioscanner is a sensitive and specific clinical study of pulmonary embolism. The outcome is favorable under appropriate treatment in short term.