Data find 12 million hospitalized patients at risk of venous thrombosis (VTE) each year in the U.S.

Henry I. Bussey, Pharm.D.
January, 2008

Well-established investigators reviewed hospital discharge data on medical and surgical patients in the U.S. for the year 2003 and compared the patient characteristics to the risk stratification criteria in the 2004 report of the American College of Chest Physicians Conference on Antithrombotic and Thrombolytic Therapy (ACCP Guidelines).¹ Over 12 million patients (approximately 7.7 million medical patients and 4.4 million surgical patients) were found to meet risk criteria for VTE.

An accompanying editorial by ClotCare Editorial Board member, Samuel Z. Goldhaber, MD pointed out that Anderson and colleagues have now described the size of the "iceberg" which leads to the "tip of the iceberg" of symptomatic DVT and PE.² Dr. Goldhaber also pointed to other study³ data that found three times as many new outpatient VTE episodes as inpatient cases. Further, the majority of patients with outpatient VTE episodes had been hospitalized within the previous 90 days and at least 50% of those had not received recommended prophylaxis. Dr. Goldhaber further points out that initiatives by groups such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Leapfrog Group, the North American Thrombosis Forum, and others to promote risk stratification and appropriate prophylaxis for all hospitalized patients have the potential to substantially reduce the incidence of VTE and to benefit millions of patients. However, such measures also need to be extended outside of the hospital to patients in the community; especially those who have been discharged from the hospital recently. Such measures may substantially reduce the VTE events which recently were estimated to occur in approximately 900,000 individuals annually in the US and result in approximately 300,000 fatalities (see http://www.clotcare.com/clotcare/
deepveinthrombosispulmonaryembolismstats.aspx).

References

1. Anderson FA Jr, Zayaruzny M, Heit JA, Fidan D, Cohen AT. Estimated annual numbers of US acute-care hospital patients at risk for venous thromboembolism. Am J Hematol. 2007 Sep;82(9):777-82.
   
   
2. Goldhaber SZ. Venous thromboembolism risk among hospitalized patients: magnitude of the risk is staggering. Am J Hematol. 2007 Sep;82(9):775-6.
   
   
3. Spencer FA, Lessard D, Emery C, Reed G, Goldberg RJ. Venous thromboembolism in the outpatient setting. Arch Intern Med. 2007 Jul 23;167(14):1471-5.