Reducing the risk of venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) in inpatients having surgery: summary of NICE guidance

doi:10.1136/bmj.39174.678032.AD

BMJ 2007;334:1053-1054 (19 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39174.678032.AD

Practice

NICE guidelines

Reducing the risk of venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) in inpatients having surgery: summary of NICE guidance

Jennifer Hill, director¹, Tom Treasure, professor of cardiothoracic surgery, on behalf of the Guideline Development Group²

¹ National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care, Royal College of Surgeons of England, London WC2A 3PE, ² Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, London SE1 9RT

Correspondence to: T Treasure tom.treasure@gmail.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Why read this summary?

Deep vein thrombosis occurs in over 20% of patients having majorsurgery and over 40% of patients having major orthopaedic surgery.The postoperative risk of pulmonary embolism can be as highas 5% in the highest risk groups. However, many patients areprobably not currently receiving adequate prophylactic measures.¹² This article summarises the most recent guidance from theNational Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)on how to reduce the risk of venous thromboembolism in inpatientshaving surgery.³

Recommendations

NICE recommendations are based on systematic reviews of bestavailable evidence. When minimal evidence is available, a rangeof consensus techniques is used to develop recommendations.In this summary, recommendations derived primarily from consensustechniques are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Assess patients for the following risk factors, and inform allpatients of the risks of venous thromboembolism and the effectivenessof prophylaxis.

• Age over 60 years

• Obesity (body . . . [Full text of this article]

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