Full Length ArticleThrombolysis for acute intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism: A meta-analysis

•To assess outcomes of thrombolysis for intermediate-risk PE by meta-analysis•8 CRTs involving 1,755 patients were included.•Thrombolysis leads to lower mortality than anticoagulation.•Thrombolysis leads to lower recurrent PE than anticoagulation.•Thrombolysis leads to higher major and minor bleeding risks than anticoagulation.

BackgroundThe use of thrombolytic therapy in patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism is controversial. To compare with anticoagulation alone, no analysis before has determined whether thrombolytic therapy is associated with improved survival or lower incidence of adverse clinical outcomes for intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism.ObjectiveThis meta-analysis was performed to assess mortality benefits, bleeding and recurrent pulmonary embolism risks associated with thrombolytic therapy compared with anticoagulation in patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism.MethodsThe Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, EBSCO, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched for randomized clinical trials comparing thrombolytic therapy with anticoagulation in intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism patients (in which the mortality data were reported) from inception to August 5, 2014. Primary outcomes were all-cause mortality and major bleeding. Secondary outcomes were recurrent pulmonary embolism and minor bleeding. The pooled relative risk (RR), Mantel-Haenszel corresponding method and fixed-effect model were used to estimate the efficacy and safety of thrombolytic therapy with 95% confidence intervals.ResultsEight clinical randomized controlled trials involving 1755 patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism were included. Patients treated with thrombolytics presented lower mortality than patients in the anticoagulation cohort (RR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.28-0.97; 1.39% [12/866] vs. 2.92% [26/889]). Compared with anticoagulation, thrombolytic therapy was associated with a higher risk of major (RR, 3.35; 95% CI, 2.03-5.54; 7.80% [64/820] vs. 2.28% [19/834]) and minor (RR, 3.66; 95% CI, 2.77-4.84; 32.78% [197/601] vs. 8.94% [53/593]) bleeding. Furthermore, thrombolytic therapy was associated with a lower incidence of recurrent pulmonary embolism (RR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.15-0.73; 0.73% [6/826] vs. 2.72% [23/846]).ConclusionCompared with anticoagulation, thrombolytic therapy in patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism is associated with lower all-cause mortality and recurrent pulmonary embolism risk despite increased major and minor bleeding risks.