Correlation between short-term air pollution exposure and unprovoked lung embolism. Prospective observational (Contamina-TEP Group)

Background The aim was to analyze the temporal relationship between short-term air pollution exposure and acute symptomatic unprovoked pulmonary embolism (PE). Patients/methods We performed a prospective, multicenter study in consecutive patients diagnosed with acute symptomatic unprovoked PE from February 2012 to January 2013. We analyzed demographic and clinical data, patients' addresses, meteorological and air pollutants data (PM10, SO2, CO, NO2, ozone emission data). We considered the number of days the patient had symptoms, and the study period constituted the previous 30 days. Likewise, the mean annual data of the reference season were calculated as well as the data of the 30-day stud…