Evaluation of the Utility of the Wells Score in Predicting Pulmonary Embolism in Patients Admitted to a Spine Surgery Service

AbstractStudy Design: A retrospective medical chart review of 4179 patients admitted to the spine surgery service. Objective: To evaluate the utility of the Wells score in predicting pulmonary embolism (PE) in patients admitted to a spine surgery service. Summary of Background Data: The decision to perform computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) to diagnose PE in patients who have undergone spine surgery requires consideration of multiple factors: false-positive CTPA results may lead to unnecessary anticoagulation treatment, and computed tomography scans are costly and expose patients to ionizing radiation. The Wells score was developed to assign risk categories to patients with suspected PE and thereby indicate the need for CTPA. However, the utility of the Wells score in predicting the likelihood of PE, specifically in spine surgery patients, has not been described to date. We identified all patients who were admitted to the spine surgery service at our institution from January 1, 2001 to Decem...