Baseline characteristics and the association between hyponatraemia and pulmonary embolism prognosis

Objective: To evaluate the effect of hyponatraemia on pulmonary thromboembolism mortality rates. Methods: The retrospective study was conducted at the Cumhuriyet University Medicine Faculty's Emergency Department, and involved the analysis of records related to all patients who were diagnosed with acute pulmonary thromboembolism between January 2005 and June 2011. Diagnoses were confirmed by pulmonary angiography, multi-slice computed tomography or high-probablity ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy. All patients (n=260) were over 16 years of age. SPSS 14 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Plasma sodium level, platelet count and hospitalisation time were significiantly lower among those who died (n=16; 6.29) (p<0.005, p<0.035, p<0.035). Pearson correlation analysis found a negative correlation between plasma sodium level and C-reactive protein, white blood cells and pulmonary artery pressure (r=-0.238, p<0.001; r=-0.222, p<0.001; r=-0.444, p<0.018 respectively). A positive correlation was found between plasma sodium level and hospitalisation time (r=0.130; p<0.039). Conclusion: While mortality rates in hyponatraemic pulmonary thromboembolism patients increases, low plasma sodium is an easy parameter that should be kept in mind for the prognosis of pulmonary thromboembolism disease.