Deferment of Objective Assessment of Deep Vein Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism Without Increased Risk of Thrombosis

Abstract

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common and potentially fatal disease.¹ Standardized guidelines are now available for its diagnosis and therapy,² but little information is available for instances in which diagnostic tests for deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) cannot be performed because institutions are poorly equipped or because of night or weekend referral. In these cases, attending physicians have to decide whether to treat incompletely assessed patients or to hospitalize them until confirmatory tests can be performed. Therefore, an approach is required that allows patients to be categorized as being at high or low risk for thromboembolic complications so that they can be treated with the least empirical and most risk-free treatments.