Rates of symptomatic venous thromboembolism in US surgical patients: A retrospective administrative database study

Alex C. Spyropoulos, Mohammed Hussein, Jay Lin, David Battleman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

US national performance measures may reduce the burden of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in surgical patients. To characterize the VTE rate in US surgical patients, and identify real-world independent VTE risk-factors, a national managed-care database was analyzed. 172,320 eligible surgical discharges (23.9% orthopedic, 76.1% abdominal surgery) from the PharMetrics database (January 2001-December 2005) were evaluated. The rate of thromboprophylaxis was low in orthopedic (40.5%) and abdominal (1.8%) surgery discharges, with the event rates of symptomatic VTE in these groups being 4.7% and 3.1%, respectively. The median time to VTE was 51 days: The majority of VTE events occurred post-discharge. Independent predictors of VTE included prior VTE (odds ratio [OR] 10.2; 95% CI: 9.2-11.4), and orthopedic versus abdominal surgery (OR 1.4; 95% CI: 1.4-1.6). Patients undergoing orthopedic or abdominal surgery remain at-risk for VTE. Implementation of national performance measures may help reduce the burden of VTE.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)458-464
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis
Volume28
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • National performance measures
  • Surgery
  • Venous thromboembolism

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