The original and simplified Wells rules and age‐adjusted D‐dimer testing to rule out pulmonary embolism: an individual patient data meta‐analysis

Essentials Evidence for the simplified Wells rule in ruling out acute pulmonary embolism (PE) is scarce. This was a post‐hoc analysis on data from 6 studies comprising 7268 patients with suspected PE. The simplified Wells rule combined with age‐adjusted D‐dimer testing may safely rule out PE. Given its ease of use, the simplified Wells rule is to be preferred over the original Wells rule.

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