Jiménez D, Agustí A, Tabernero E, et al. - Among patients hospitalized for an exacerbation of COPD, no improvement in a composite set of health outcomes was observed in correlation with adding an active diagnostic strategy for pulmonary embolism (D-dimer testing and, if positive, computed tomography pulmonary angiogram) to usual care when compared with providing usual care alone.

• A multicenter randomized clinical trial was performed including 746 patients who required hospitalization for exacerbation of COPD.

• Participants received either usual care plus an active strategy for diagnosing pulmonary embolism or usual care alone.

• 29.7% of the patients in the intervention group and 29.2% of the patients in the control group had occurrence of the primary outcome (a composite of nonfatal symptomatic venous thromboembolism, readmission for COPD, or death within 90 days after randomization); the difference was not statistically significant.