A 79 year old woman with a swollen right leg

doi:10.1136/bmj.b3996

Published 14 October 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3996
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3996

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A 79 year old woman with a swollen right leg

Bryan Joseph Renton, specialist registrar in acute medicine

¹ Warrington Hospital, Warrington, Cheshire WA5 1QG

bjrenton@doctors.net.uk

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

A 79 year old woman, who had previously been fit and well, wasreferred by her general practitioner to the emergency medicalunit with a three week history of a swollen right leg. She hadpreviously been treated for possible cellulitis, with no improvement.She had no systemic symptoms and no risk factors for deep veinthrombosis. At initial presentation to the emergency medicalunit she was documented as having a "unilateral swollen rightleg, with no evidence of cellulitis." The rest of the examinationwas normal. Baseline blood tests were normal, except for a positiveD-dimer test. The impression was of a deep vein thrombosis,so she was treated with low molecular weight heparin and a Dopplerultrasound scan was booked as an outpatient. The results ofthe Doppler scan were normal and she was reassured and advisedto see her general practitioner if the swelling worsened.