Sudden unexpected death from pulmonary thromboembolism--examination of antemortem chest X-ray.

An autopsy case of a woman who died suddenly from undiagnosed and untreated pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) on her way home from the hospital is described in this report. She had complained of chest pain and dyspnea on exertion when she visited the hospital and a chest X-ray taken at that time showed remarkable manifestation of right heart failure and PTE, compared with former X-rays taken during previous visits to the hospital. In this report we present the findings of four chest X-rays of this patient, which had been taken both before and after the development of PTE.