Fayad Al-Haimus։ HI-PEITHO Shows Reduced PE Complications Without Increased Bleeding
Fayad Al-Haimus, Adult Thrombosis Fellow at McMaster University, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article by Kenneth Rosenfield et al. published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM):
”The HI-PEITHO trial landed in NEJM Group last week. Worth a read if you manage PE.
The background: intermediate-high-risk PE has always been a difficult call.
Anticoagulation alone felt insufficient for the sickest patients, but systemic thrombolysis carried some bleeding risk as well (approximately 2% intracranial hemorrhage in PEITHO-1) to use routinely.
HI-PEITHO tested low-dose alteplase delivered via catheter directly into the pulmonary artery: 544 patients, 59 sites across the US and Europe.
At 7 days, the primary composite endpoint (PE-related death, cardiopulmonary decompensation, or recurrence) occurred in 4.0% of the catheter-directed thrombolysis group versus 10.3% on anticoagulation alone, roughly a 60% relative risk reduction.
Major bleeding was similar between groups.
A few things worth keeping in mind before updating practice:
- No mortality benefit demonstrated; the signal is in short-term decompensation.
- It remains unclear whether the ultrasound component adds anything over low-dose catheter alteplase alone.
The trial gives the field something it has been lacking; a reasonably powered RCT with a clear signal in a population that has been genuinely hard to manage.”
Title: Ultrasound-Facilitated, Catheter-Directed Fibrinolysis for Acute Pulmonary Embolism
Authors: Kenneth Rosenfield, Frederikus A. Klok, Gregory Piazza, Andrew S.P. Sharp, Fionnuala Ní Áinle, Michael R. Jaff, Stefano Barco, Samuel Z. Goldhaber, Nils Kucher, Irene M. Lang, Irene Schmidtmann, Keith M. Sterling, Aleksander Araszkiewicz, Vishal Arora, Rafael Cires-Drouet, John Coghlan, Lukas Hobohm, Wulf D. Ito, Kurt Jacobson, Christoph Kaiser, Grzegorz Kopec, Kristin Marx, Samuel McElwee, Nicolas Meneveau, Peter Monteleone, Jose M. Montero-Cabezas, Christoph B. Olivier, John Park, Marek Roik, Rahul Sakhuja, Andi Tego, Markus Theurl, Gautam Visveswaran, Jan Albert Vos, Michael N. Young, Federico M. Asch, Stavros V. Konstantinides

Stay updated on all scientific advances with Hemostasis Today.
-
May 12, 2026, 16:46Tagreed Alkaltham: Why Apheresis Matters in Modern Transfusion Medicine
-
May 12, 2026, 16:37Reinhold Kreutz: Cardiovascular Burden in Acute Intermittent Porphyria Needs Greater Awareness
-
May 12, 2026, 16:33Pablo Corral: The Truth About Very Low LDL-Cholesterol
-
May 12, 2026, 16:24Mildred Lundgren: We Must Talk About the Invisible Causes of Stroke
-
May 12, 2026, 16:17Irene Scala: The Sex Disparities In Access to Acute Stroke Treatments In Italy
-
May 12, 2026, 16:04May Nour: UCLA Health Mobile Stroke Unit Becomes The 1st In The World to Perform mCTA In the Field
-
May 12, 2026, 15:57Leonardo Roever: Prognostic Impact of Lipoprotein(a) and CAR in Elderly Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients
-
May 12, 2026, 15:54Bruno Pougault: Prioritizing Laboratory Tests in Resource-Limited Emergency Care
-
May 12, 2026, 15:37Jennifer Holter Chakrabarty: Supporting the Next Generation of Hematology Researchers