Pulmonary Embolism with Ayesha Zia
PedsCrit
Limits of clinical rules and D-dimer in kids
Ayesha explains lack of validated pediatric Wells equivalents and cautious use of D-dimer in low-risk children.
Ayesha Zia, MD, is a Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a nationally recognized expert in pediatric thrombosis, with particular emphasis on the diagnosis, management, and long-term outcomes of pulmonary embolism in children and adolescents. She serves as Director of the Pediatric Hemostasis and Thrombosis Program at Children’s Health Dallas. She has led the development of a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to pediatric PE care, including pulmonary embolism response teams. Her October 2025 publication in Blood “How I treat pediatric pulmonary embolism” is the topic of today’s discussion
Learning Objective: By the end of this podcast, listeners should be able to describe an evidence-based and expert-guided approach to the diagnosis, risk stratification and management of pulmonary embolism in children.
References:
Zia A, Goldenberg NA, Rajpurkar M. How I treat pediatric pulmonary embolism. Blood. 2025 Oct 2;146(14):1643-1653. doi: 10.1182/blood.2024026599.
Dang MP, Cheng A, Garcia J, Lee Y, Parikh M, McMichael ABV, Han BL, Pimpalwar S, Rinzler ES, Hoffman OL, Baltagi SA, Bowens C, Divekar AA, Davis Volk AP, Huang CJ, Veeram Reddy SR, Arar Y, Zia A. Bringing PERT to Pediatrics: Initial Experience and Outcomes of a Pediatric Multidisciplinary Pulmonary Embolism Response Team (PERT). Chest. 2025 Mar;167(3):851-862.
Mercurio L, Corwin D, Kaplan R, Ellison AM, Casper TC, Kuppermann N, Kline JA. Bedside exclusion of pulmonary embolism in children without radiation (BEEPER): a national study of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network-Study protocol. Res Pract Thromb Haemost. 2023 Jan 14;7(2):100046.
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Please remember that all content during this episode is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be used as medical advice. The views expressed during this episode by hosts and our guests are their own and do not reflect the official position of their institutions. If you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback-you can email us at pedscritpodcast@gmail.com. You can also check out our website at http://www.pedscrit.com. Thank you for listening to this episode of PedsCrit!
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