Epidemiology and Clinical Pattern of Intermediate and High Risk Pulmonary Embolism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Background: Many studies have been carried out on pulmonary embolism (PE) in general in our country. But to the best of our knowledge, they have never been focused on specific stages of PE according to the last classification predicting the mortality at 5 years specially for the intermediate (IR-PE) and high risk (HR-PE) of pulmonary embolism. Objective: We describe the epidemiology and clinical pattern of intermediate and high-risk pulmonary embolism (PE) in two hospitals in Cameroon. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study carried out in two reference hospitals of Yaoundé-Cameroon on a 6 years period from January 1st, 2015 to December 31st, 2020. All complete medical records of patients aged 20 years and more, with a confirmed diagnosis of pulmonary embolism and risk stratification were included. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 18.0. Results: The medical records of 86 patients were analysed. The mean age was 52.5 ± 15.9 years with a sex ratio of 0.59. The cumulative prevalence of intermediate and high risk PE was 5.9%. The proportions of ILR-PE, IHR-PE and HR-PE were respectively 40.7%, 40.7% and 18.6%. Obesity, use of combined oral contraceptive pills and previous VTE were the most frequent risk factors. Symptoms were dominated by dyspnoea and chest pain and the physical sign most frequently found was tachycardia. Conclusion: Prevalence of intermediate and high risk PE remains high in our context. Risks factors and clinical manifestations are similar to the data found in the literature.