Pulmonary Embolism (PE) patients with hypocalcemia have higher in-hospital mortality than those without hypocalcemia. The in-hospital complications were also higher, along with longer length of stay.

In the 2017 NIS, 187,989 patients had a principal diagnosis of acute PE.

Among the above study group, 1565 (0.8%) had an additional diagnosis of hypocalcemia.

12.4% of PE patients with hypocalcemia died in the hospital in comparison to 2.95% without hypocalcemia.

On multivariate regression analysis, PE and hypocalcemia patients had 4 times higher odds of in-hospital mortality compared to those with only PE.

We observed a similarly high odds of mortality on 1:1 propensity-matched analysis.

The incidence of acute kidney injury, acute respiratory failure, sepsis and arrhythmias were also higher for PE patients with hypocalcemia.

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