Pulmonary Embolism is an Important Cause of Death in Young Adults

Background Population-based analysis shows that deaths from pulmonary embolism (PE) are increasing in the older age groups, but it is unclear to what degree PE contributes to death in different ages and gender. Methods and Results Potential contribution factors for all PE and for critical PE (in which PE was the primary cause of death or the main diagnosis) were examined in 396,982 autopsy cases. For all PE, odds ratio (OR) in males was 0.61 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.59-0.64, p