title: Rates of symptomatic venous thromboembolism in US surgical patients: a retrospective administrative database study.
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.
authors.affiliation: University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM, USA. aspyropoulos2787@msn.com
authors.forename: Alex C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Spyropoulos
authors.forename: Mohammed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hussein
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Battleman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000639:trends*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019637:Orthopedic Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000639:trends; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D054556:Venous Thromboembolism / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D055815:Young Adult