Prevalence of Postoperative Deep Vein Thrombosis in Patients Undergoing Emergency Laparotomy: A Prospective...

Background Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is more common in the hospital population and has an estimated annual incidence of 67 per 100,000. Surgery is a risk factor for DVT and has been proven to cause morbidity and mortality in the postoperative period. The correlation between the frequency of DVT and major surgical procedures has been demonstrated. However, few studies have been conducted on the relationship between emergency surgeries and the incidence of DVT. Our study aims to determine the prevalence of postoperative DVT in patients undergoing emergency laparotomies. Methods This prospective observational study was conducted over 18 months, from January 2021 to July 2022. Patients who underwent emergency exploratory laparotomies were included in this study. Duplex ultrasonography was done preoperatively to exclude patients with DVT. A serial duplex ultrasound was performed to detect DVT until the seventh postoperative day. All the clinicopathological and surgical information of patients relevant to this study was collected and analyzed. Results Out of 146 patients, one developed DVT in the postoperative period. The patient who experienced DVT had no other known risk factors; however, his age of 60 was a risk factor for DVT. So, the reported prevalence of DVT in our study population was just 0.68% of emergency exploratory laparotomy patients. Conclusion Our study reports DVT in only one case out of 146 patients who underwent emergency exploratory laparotomy without routine pharmacological prophylaxis. We might, therefore, conclude that emergency exploratory laparotomy may be a separate risk factor for the emergence of DVT. More prospective studies with large sample sizes should be done to evaluate the prevalence of DVT in emergency exploratory laparotomies.