An Epidemiologic Study of Risk Factors for Deep Vein Thrombosis in Medical Outpatients

Abstract

DEEP VEIN thrombosis (DVT) remains a frequent disease in which the major complication is pulmonary embolism (PE)—both DVT and PE occurring most frequently in nonsurgical (medical) patients.¹ The incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in general medical patients ranges from 10% to 30%.^2,3 In addition, autopsy series of hospitalized patients have shown that PE was the cause of 4% to 11% of deaths and that only 1 in 4 of these patients had recent surgery.^4,5 As sudden death is often the first and only clinical sign of VTE,⁵ and as most deaths occur within 30 minutes of the acute event, systematic prophylaxis has been advocated as the most convenient and logical answer to this threat.⁶