Recommendations issued to reduce incidence of VTE

A group of representatives from federal health agencies and patient groups, as well as experts from the medical and public health communities — convened by the American Society of Hematology — has drafted three recommendations to address the growing problem of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.

DVT and pulmonary embolism, known collectively as venous thromboembolism (VTE), affect nearly 1 million Americans each year, resulting in about 300,000 deaths.

The new recommendations were published March 9 in a supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in conjunction with the inaugural National Conference on Blood Disorders in Public Health that is being conducted this week in Atlanta.

The recommendations call for strengthening surveillance of VTE to provide a geographically and racially representative measure of annual incidence, a CDC expert advisory panel to develop scientific approaches for strengthened surveillance, and a national campaign to increase public awareness of the risk factors for and dangers associated with DVT and pulmonary embolism.

“DVT is of such concern that the U.S. surgeon general issued a call to action last fall to help raise public awareness about the disorder and increase research on the causes, prevention and treatment for DVT and [pulmonary embolism],” Gary Raskob, PhD, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and one of the authors of the recommendations, said in a press release. “Though it’s a common disorder, DVT is highly preventable. That’s why spreading the word about who’s at risk and the steps one can take to prevent these dangerous clots is so important.”

Risk factors for VTE include surgery or trauma, hospitalization, cancer, obesity, smoking, pregnancy, oral contraceptive use, age older than 60 years and a family history of blood clots.

Raskob GE. Am J Prev Med. 2010;38(4S):S502–S509.

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