Age-Adjusted D-dimer: Is it Ready for Prime Time?
Pulmonary embolism is a life-threatening entity affecting up to 900,000 individuals a year. Unfortunately, D-dimer levels increase with age decreasing the yield of the test. In order to increase the specificity safely, Douma et al. performed a retrospective analysis to derive age-adjusted D-dimer cutoffs. The study developed the age-adjusted D-dimer with a receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve.14 In JAMA 2014, Righini et al. published a prospective study utilizing the age-adjusted cutoff.
AGE ADJUSTED D-DIMER CUTOFF = (AGE X 10) μg/L
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