Prevention and treatment of deep venous thrombosis
Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is common condition, which principally affects the veins in the lower leg and thigh. It is the most common in adults over 60 years of age, but it can occur in any age group. More than 200,000 new cases of deep venous thrombosis occur annually. Of these, 30 percent of patients die within 30 days from onset, one fifth of the patients suffer sudden death due to pulmonary embolism, and about 30 percent of patients develop recurrent DVT within 10 years. The most common risk factors for developing the deep venous thrombosis are recent surgery or hospitalization. Other risk factors, which include advanced age, obesity, infection, immobilization, fractures, childbirth within the last 6 months, use of combined (estrogen-containing) forms of hormonal contraception, smoking and air travel ('economy class syndrome'), are some of the better-known causes of DVT. Over the last 10 years, new strategies for diagnosing suspected DVT have been introduced. One of them is use of clinical criteria that takes into account signs, symptoms and risk factor for developing DVT and which can be accurately applied to categorize probability of DVT. These clinical criteria are also useful to identify patients that can have benefit from prolonged anticoagulant therapy. Pulmonary embolism, which is the worst complication of DVT, can be life threatening, so the establishing of accurate diagnosis and rapid treatment of DVT help to prevent this problem and to save patient's life.