Besides right ventricular failure, which change is described as increased dead space in pulmonary embolism?

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The main idea is that pulmonary embolism increases physiologic dead space. When an embolus blocks blood flow to portions of the lung, those ventilated alveoli receive air but not blood for gas exchange. That makes more of the lung ventilated but not perfused, raising the physiologic dead space (the portion of tidal volume that cannot participate in gas exchange). This increased dead space worsens ventilatory efficiency and contributes to the observed tachypnea and hypoxemia. The other options don’t fit the typical pattern in PE: dead space doesn’t decrease or stay the same, and it’s not usually described as variable.