Analysis of real-world data pulmonary embolism as the underlying cause of death during the COVID-19 pandemic

We planned a real-world analysis using official data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate whether the mortality for pulmonary embolism (PE) has changed significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The age-adjusted mortality for PE was 2.30 (2.25–2.35) × 100,000 in 2018, decreased slightly to 2.20 (2.16–2.25) × 100,000 in 2019, then increased to 2.40 (2.35–2.45) × 100,000 in 2020 and 2.44 (2.39–2.49) × 100,000 in 2021, but then decreased again to 2.26 (2.21–2.31) × 100,000 in 2022. As concern the gender- and age-related mortality, the trend was almost identical between men and women, while pulmonary embolism as the underlying cause of death displayed a greater increase in the older population. The results of our analysis of real-world data provided by the CDC show that US mortality for PE increased significantly in the first two years of the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period (i.e., years 2018 and 2019).