Unplanned 30-Day Readmissions after Management of Submassive and Massive Acute Pulmonary Embolism: Catheter-Directed versus Systemic Thrombolysis.

Purpose: To compare 30-day readmission and in-hospital outcomes from the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD) for catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) versus systemic intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) as treatments for acute submassive or massive pulmonary embolism (PE).

Materials And Methods: The NRD was queried from 2016 to 2019 for adult patients with nonseptic acute PE who underwent IVT or CDT. Massive PE was distinguished from submassive PE if patients had concurrent International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes corresponding to mechanical ventilation, vasopressors, or shock. Propensity score-matched analysis was conducted to infer the association of CDT versus IVT in unplanned 30-day readmissions, nonroutine discharge, gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB), and intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). These results are demonstrated as average treatment effects (ATEs) of IVT compared with those of CDT.

Results: A total of 37,116 patients with acute PE were studied; 18,702 (50.3%) underwent CDT, and 18,414 (49.7%) underwent IVT. A total of 2,083 (11.1%) and 3,423 (18.6%) were massive PEs in the 2 groups, respectively (P < .001). The ATE of IVT was higher than that of CDT regarding unplanned 30-day readmissions (ATE, 0.019; P < .001), GIB (ATE, 0.012; P < .001), ICH (ATE, 0.003; P = .017), and nonroutine discharge (ATE, 0.022; P = .006). The subgroup analysis of patients with submassive PE demonstrated that IVT had a higher ATE regarding unplanned 30-day readmission (ATE, 0.028; P < .001), GIB (ATE, 0.008; P = .003), ICH (ATE, 0.002; P = .035), and nonroutine discharge (ATE, 0.019; P = .022) than CDT.

Conclusions: CDT had a lower likelihood of unplanned 30-day readmissions, including when stratified by a submassive PE subtype. Additionally, adverse events, including ICH and GIB, were more likely among patients who received IVT than among those who received CDT.