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    The content on this page is not current guidance and is only for the purposes of the consultation process.

    Methods

    NICE identified studies and reviews relevant to percutaneous thrombectomy for massive and submassive pulmonary embolus from the medical literature. The following databases were searched between the date they started to 18th August 2022: MEDLINE, PREMEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and other databases. Trial registries and the internet were also searched (see the literature search strategy). Relevant published studies identified during consultation or resolution that are published after this date may also be considered for inclusion.

    The following inclusion criteria were applied to the abstracts identified by the literature search.

    • Publication type: clinical studies were included with emphasis on identifying good quality studies. Abstracts were excluded if they did not report clinical outcomes. Reviews, editorials, and laboratory or animal studies, were also excluded and so were conference abstracts, because of the difficulty of appraising study methodology, unless they reported specific adverse events that not available in the published literature.

    • Patients with massive and submassive pulmonary embolism.

    • Intervention or test: percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy

    • Outcome: articles were retrieved if the abstract contained information relevant to the safety, efficacy, or both.

    If selection criteria could not be determined from the abstracts the full paper was retrieved.

    Potentially relevant studies not included in the main evidence summary are listed in the section on other relevant studies.

    Find out more about how NICE selects the evidence for the committee.

    Table 4 literature search strategy

    Databases

    Date searched

    Version/files

    MEDLINE (Ovid)

    19/08/2022

    1946 to August 18, 2022

    MEDLINE In-Process (Ovid)

    19/08/2022

    1946 to August 18, 2022

    MEDLINE Epubs ahead of print (Ovid)

    19/08/2022

    August 18, 2022

    EMBASE (Ovid)

    19/08/2022

    1974 to 2022 August 18

    EMBASE Conference (Ovid)

    19/08/2022

    1974 to 2022 August 18

    Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews – CDSR (Cochrane Library)

    19/08/2022

    Issue 8 of 12, August 2022

    Cochrane Central Database of Controlled Trials – CENTRAL (Cochrane Library)

    19/08/2022

    Issue 7 of 12, July 2022

    International HTA database (INAHTA)

    19/08/2022

    -

    Trial sources searched

    • Clinicaltrials.gov

    • ISRCTN

    • WHO International Clinical Trials Registry

    Websites searched

    • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

    • NHS England

    • Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - MAUDE database

    • Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures – Surgical (ASERNIP – S)

    • Australia and New Zealand Horizon Scanning Network (ANZHSN)

    • General internet search

    The following search strategy was used to identify papers in MEDLINE. A similar strategy was used to identify papers in other databases.

    MEDLINE search strategy

    The MEDLINE search strategy was translated for use in the other sources.

    1 Thrombectomy/ 9486

    2 percutaneous.tw. 139833

    3 1 and 2 1184

    4 (percutaneous adj4 thrombectom*).tw. 564

    5 3 or 4 1279

    6 catheter*.tw. 198862

    7 Catheters/ 6814

    8 (mechanical* adj4 thrombectom*).tw. 3581

    9 or/6-8 203262

    10 5 and 9 636

    11 Venous Thromboembolism/ 14419

    12 ((Venous adj4 (thrombo-embolism* or thromboembolism*)) or VTE).ti,ab. 23485

    13 Pulmonary Embolism/ 42217

    14 (((Pulmonary or lung*) adj4 embol*) or PE).ti,ab. 83515

    15 Venous Thrombosis/ 28631

    16 (((vein* or ven*) adj4 thromb*) or DVT).ti,ab. 83500

    17 (thrombus* or thrombotic* or thrombolic* or thromboemboli* or thrombos* or embol*).ti,ab. 331968

    18 (blood adj4 clot*).ti,ab. 11774

    19 or/11-18 397581

    20 10 and 19 554

    21 EKOS.tw. 72

    22 21 and 19 63

    23 (Indigo adj4 Aspiration).tw. 19

    24 FlowTriever*.tw. 29

    25 AlphaVac.tw. 0

    26 or/20,22-25 652

    27 Animals/ not Humans/ 5004253

    28 26 not 27 638

    29 limit 28 to english language 596