The BEEPER (BEdside Exclusion of Pulmonary Embolism in children without Radiation) study will determine if a set of eight rules can safely exclude the small chance that a child has blood clots in the lungs in the emergency department (ED) setting. This project has the potential to improve the care of children in the ED.
The study is a prospective, observational cohort study of children ages 4 to 17 years old (up to their 18th birthday) who have sufficiently high probability of pulmonary embolism (PE) to warrant objective diagnostic testing with a D-dimer or pulmonary vascular imaging or raise a strong suspicion of the need for testing, but the clinician decided not to test for a specific reason. The goal is to measure the diagnostic accuracy of a prediction rule for exclusion of PE (the PERC-Peds rule) and the D-dimer. This study will enroll up to 4,030 eligible children over approximately four years.
Participants will be followed for 45+ (primary) and 90+ (venous thromboembolism+ only) days after enrollment.