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Updated: Sep 2, 2025

Point-Of-Care Ultrasound Screening for Proximal Lower Extremity Deep Venous Thrombosis
Published on: February 10, 2023
Popliteal cysts are not a risk factor for lower extremity deep vein thrombosis
Paul Daniels1, Danielle Vlazny2, Ryan Meverden2
1Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States.
Background:
Popliteal cysts (PC) result from distension of the gastrocnemio-semimembranosous bursa. Published reports indicate coincident PC and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Whether the presence of PC increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) remains unclear.
Methods:
Lower extremity venous Duplex ultrasound (DUS) reports were evaluated across the Mayo Clinic Enterprise (Rochester, Minnesota, Jacksonville, Florida, Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Mayo Clinic Health System) in patients ≥ 18 years of age. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms were created and validated to identify acute lower extremity DVT and PC from these reports. To determine whether there is a link between PC and lower extremity DVT, the frequency of PC among cases (ultrasounds with acute DVT) were compared to controls (ultrasounds without acute DVT).
Results:
A total of 357,703 lower extremities venous DUS were performed in 237,052 patients (mean age 63.3 ± 16.6, 54.4% were female) between 1992 and 2021. Acute DVT was identified in 32,572 (9.1%) DUS, and PC in 32,448 (9.1%). PC were seen in a lower frequency (8.0%) of ultrasounds with acute DVT than those without (9.2%) acute DVT (OR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.82 to 0.89, p < 0.001). In a multivariate logistic regression model after adjusting for age, sex, and race, PCs were not positively associated with acute DVT (adjusted OR: 0.84, 95% CI: 0.81 to 0.88).
Conclusions:
PC are an incidental finding or an alternative diagnosis on lower extremity venous DUS, a finding that increases significantly with age. PC were not a risk factor in the development of lower extremity DVT.
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