Massive pulmonary embolism: short-term effects of thrombolytic treatment.

This study assessed the short-term effects of thrombolytic treatment in 38 patients with massive pulmonary embolism. Thirty-two were treated with streptokinase and six with urokinase. Intrapulmonary artery instillation of fibrinolytic agents was utilized except in 3 patients. There was a marked hemodynamic and arteriographic improvement (p less than 0.0005) in 33 patients (86.8%). Four patients (10.5%) died because of treatment failure. In these cases the fibrinogen concentration remained above 1 gr/liter during therapy. Bleeding was detected in 22 patients (57.8%) but was most often related to puncture or cut-down sites, and only 2 patients (5.2%) had major bleeding. One patient (2.6%) had cerebral hemorrhage. It is concluded that "classic" thrombolytic treatment is to be chosen in life-threatening pulmonary embolism. However, the difficulties sometimes encountered in producing an intense lytic effect and its low fibrinolytic specificity for the thrombus do not permit the obtainment of better results.