D-Dimer

Hi Katelyn here, for this week’s YouTube video I wanted to talk about the D-dimer, the D-dimer is a lab value you get. So you draw serum from the patient, and it evaluates for any blood clots in the body.

Usually I am getting a D-dimer when I have a low pre-test probability of the patient actually having a PE or a blood clot in their legs. It is more of a rule-out factor for me, and I base it on their Wells score.

If their wells is greater than 4 then you just want to get a CTA.

If their wells score is less than 4, and it is still something on your differential diagnosis list, you can grab a D-dimer.

If its negative there’s a pretty good probability, as well as a high specificity, that there is no blood clot in the body.

However, in some cases patients have higher d-dimers:
• Infection
• Cancer
• Pregnancy
• Elderly

I wanted to talk about diff d-dimer thresholds for age and pregnancy. So let’s get started.
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