The incidence of postoperative deep vein thrombosis following abdominal surgery

Abstract

We investigated the incidence of postoperative deep venous thrombosis (DVT) in 200 patients who underwent an elective abdominal surgery. DVT was diagnosed in 27 of 200 patients. Of 27 patients with DVT, 17 did not have any clinical findings and diagnosis was made on the basis of color doppler USC findings. Ten of 27 patients had clinical findings of DVT and diagnosis was confirmed with doppler USC. The overall incidence of DVT was 13.5% and probability of correct diagnosis of DVT based on clinical findings alone was less than 40%, suggesting that clinical examination is notoriously unreliable in establishing the diagnosis of DVT and is clearly inadequate for making a more subtle determination of extent of disease. In this study, duration of operation (>45 minutes), hospital stay (>5 days) and age of the patients were found to be important risk factors for postoperative DVT. Color doppler USC is a highly sensitive and specific non-invasive technique for diagnosis and follow-up of patients with DVT.