What's Hot in Clots: May 2025

Just came back from quick long-distance travel and it’s done wonders for me (not in a good way) between motion sickness and jet lag! Enough nagging! To keep it relevant, I ran some searches both for motion sickness and jet lag with thrombotic conditions and didn’t find much; maybe a subject for future research! Here are this month’s summaries:

Exercise intolerance and functional outcomes in pediatric pulmonary embolism

Over the past decade, there has been more attention to functional outcomes and exercise capacity after PE events in adults. Now, an international consortium of investigators is planning to study these issues in pediatric patients with PE. I find it an important and commendable effort. Read more.

Looking for Leiden V mutation? When to test and when not to test

In this brief opinion piece, the authors thoughtfully discuss when testing for Leiden V is reasonable and share many scenarios in which in their opinion, genetic testing is not needed. An interesting example that they bring is unprovoked VTE (I suppose because they encourage anticoagulation anyway). I largely agree, though I tend to think shared decision-making is key since some patients may change their decisions by having additional confirmed information. Read more.

Natural history of untreated (missed) PE in patients with cancer

In short, it’s uncommon, but the outcomes don’t look great and include recurrent VTE and death. As we move toward the integration of AI tools in screening CT images, I hope there will be fewer of these missed PEs. Read more.

Case report of an inferior MI

Really? Even if I am boring (which I very well may be), I tend not to waste your time with a classic inferior MI. This one occurred after shotgun pellet embolization! Read more.

Behnood Bikdeli, MD, MS