Bova Score for Pulmonary Embolism Complications
INSTRUCTIONS
Use ONLY in hemodynamically stable patients (sBP ≥90) with confirmed acute PE (pulmonary embolism).
Patients with confirmed acute PE, defined as:
- Intraluminal filling defect on PE protocol spiral CT, or
- Positive V/Q scan, or
- Normal or inconclusive CT or V/Q scan and positive lower extremity ultrasound.
Do not use in hemodynamically unstable patients (sBP <90 mmHg).
- The Bova Score risk stratifies normotensive patients with confirmed PE to identify patients at intermediate and high risk for complications and mortality associated with PE.
- Use only in patients who are hemodynamically stable (sBP ≥90 mmHg).
- Accounts for right ventricular dysfunction and cardiac biomarkers, unlike other scoring systems for PE.
- Differs from the PESI (and sPESI), which were specifically designed to identify patients at low risk for mortality.
- Use variables obtained at the time of diagnosis of acute PE.
- Requires troponin and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) or CT scan to assess for right ventricular dysfunction.
- In normotensive patients, identifying those at high risk for PE-related events can be challenging.
- The European Society of Cardiology recommends stratifying patients with PE in a stepwise approach using right ventricular dysfunction and cardiac biomarkers as part of the risk assessment. The Bova Score looks at both right ventricular dysfunction and cardiac biomarkers.
- Other clinical models (e.g. sPESI, Hestia Criteria) identify low-risk patients who may be candidates for outpatient therapy, but may not identify well-appearing patients who are at high risk and may benefit from escalated care (e.g. thrombolysis, ICU management).
- May identify intermediate low and intermediate high (previously submassive) risk PE patients who benefit from advanced therapy.
Result:
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From the Creator
Why did you develop the Bova Score? Was there a particular clinical experience or patient encounter that inspired you to create this tool for clinicians?
Risk stratification in patients with acute pulmonary embolism is important to guide patient management. Most patients with normal blood pressure go well if treated with anticoagulants, but some have adverse events related to pulmonary embolism. Great efforts have been made to realize a tool able to identify these so-called “intermediate-risk” patients. The Bova Score has been created for this purpose. It was the result of an international collaboration of seven authors who pooled the results of six European cohort studies.
What pearls, pitfalls and/or tips do you have for users of the Bova Score? Do you know of cases when it has been applied, interpreted, or used inappropriately?
Stage I of the Bova Score should not be used to identify low-risk PE patients eligible for early discharge or outpatient therapy because it does not consider relevant comorbidities such as cancer or cardiopulmonary diseases.
What recommendations do you have for doctors once they have applied the Bova Score? Are there any adjustments or updates you would make to the score based on new data or practice changes?
Patients belonging to stage III should be closely monitored to rapidly identify hemodynamic deterioration. However, this stage should not be considered, as a single criterion, a compelling indication for the thrombolysis.
How do you use the Bova Score in your own clinical practice? Can you give an example of a scenario in which you use it?
In my opinion, the best scenario for using the Bova Score is in the emergency department.
Why was oxygen saturation <90% not included as part of the scoring system? It appears to be a significant finding to predict PE-related complications.
Oxygen saturation <90% was not included in the scoring system because it was associated with 30-day pulmonary embolism-related complications in the univariate, but not in the multivariate, analysis.
Any thoughts on the modified Bova Score (Keller et al, 2015)?
The article by Keller and collaborators is very interesting because it showed that the Bova Score is useful in predicting adverse events even in hemodynamically unstable patients. However, these results should be confirmed.
Any other research in the pipeline that you’re particularly excited about?
Our group has recently completed a multicenter prospective validation of the Bova Score. We hope the results will be publicly available soon.
About the Creator
Carlo Bova, MD, is an internal medicine physician at Annunziata General Hospital in Cosenza, Italy. He is also one of the investigators of the PESIT (Prevalence of Pulmonary Embolism Among Patients Hospitalized for Syncope) study. Dr. Bova's research interest is in venous thromboembolism, and he has published several papers in this field.
To view Dr. Carlo Bova's publications, visit PubMed