Prevalence of deep vein thrombosis in patients with lower limb trauma

Venous thrombo-embolism (VTE), which consists of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism, is a potentially fatal condition. According to Western literature, DVT of lower limb veins is one of the most common complications following surgeries for lower limb. Few studies have been published from India on the subject and little is known about the true prevalence of the DVT and hence there are no clear guidelines regarding the prophylaxis for DVT for Indian patients.

We carried out a prospective study to determine the prevalence of DVT in 125 patients with lower limb trauma. All the patients underwent Colour Doppler pre-operatively, 4th post-operative day, at 3rd month post operatively and at 6th month post operatively only in patients who remained DVT positive at 3rd month post operatively, to see for the recanalisation. No mechanical or chemical form of DVT prophylaxis was used in DVT negative patients either pre-operatively or post-operatively.

In our series of 125 patients, 107 were males and 18 females (M:F = 5.9:1). Majority of our DVT positive patients were above 60 years of age. Out of 47 patients with periacetabular fractures, 8.51% developed DVT. Out of 8 patients with floating knee injury, 25% developed DVT. Combination of risk factors rather than a single risk factor had played important role for development of DVT in our study. 6 patients were DVT positive (4.8%). Amongst them 3 (2.4%) had proximal DVT and 3 (2.4%) had distal DVT. There was single case of pulmonary embolism (PE).