Combined use of rapid D-dimer testing and estimation of clinical probability in the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis: systematic review

I congratulate the authors and the BMJ editorial team for publishing
such an important and useful topic.
As junior doctors, we face this dilemma of diagnosis of DVT everyday.

We recently did an audit in the Haematology department of Morriston
Hospital comparing two different d-dimer assay methods. The results showed
that SimpliRed d-Dimer assay has lower sensitivity of about 75% and a
negative predictive value of 78.9% as compared to D-Dimer Plus ELISA which
has sensitivity of about 93% and negative predictive value of about 90%.

The Department of Hematology at Swansea NHS Trust is now conducting a
prospective case controlled study of 200 patients presenting with possible
DVT to compare the suitability and negative predictive values of four
different d-Dimer assays(Dade-Behring D-Dimer Plus, Biopool Auto-Dimer,
Biopool Mini-Quant D-Dimer and SimpiRed)

Hopefully this will give us some help in striking a good balance
between sensitivity and specificity in our setup.

Sincerely

S Kalra

Competing interests:
None declared