title: Clinically Diagnosed Postoperative Venous Thromboembolism in a Neurosurgery Practice in Nigeria.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major surgical complication, fraught with high case fatality rate, to which neurosurgical patients are particularly prone. There is dearth of data on this problem in the neurosurgical literature from sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 6-year prospective descriptive study of postoperative VTE in a neurosurgeon's clinical practice in Nigeria is hereby presented. The clinical case of a fatal, postmortem-confirmed post craniotomy VTE also is annotated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 10 cases of clinically diagnosed neurosurgical postoperative VTE, representing 2.4% of the surgical patients population. The cases were diagnosed from clinical impressions supplemented with laboratory investigations like the Doppler ultrasonography with B-mode imaging of the deep veins of the lower extremities, and chest computed tomographic angiography. Six of these 10 cases died, a case fatality rate of 60%. Meningiomas were the intracranial tumours operated on in 60% of the cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Postoperative venous thromboembolism has a very high case fatality rate among these neurosurgical patients. There is need for continuing surveillance of this problem, as well as a heightened vigilance to prevent and treat it in our neurosurgical patient populations.
authors: Division of Neurological Surgery, Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, and University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Nigeria. Electronic address: femdoy@yahoo.com.
authors: Amos O
authors: AO
authors: Adeleye
authors: Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, and University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Nigeria.
authors: Gabriel O
authors: GO
authors: Ogun
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects*; D009549:Nigeria; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D054556:Venous Thromboembolism / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology
keywords: Deep-vein thrombosis; Developing country; Neurosurgery; Postoperative; Pulmonary embolism; Venous thromboembolism