Routine screening for venous thrombosis by ultrasound in the elderly

One hundred admissions to a geriatric assessment unit were screened over a three-week period with a Sonicaid Ultrasound apparatus for the development of venous thrombosis in the legs, as denoted by an abnormal ultrasound scan. Any patients with suggestive physical signs were also noted and all such patients, together with those with abnormal ultrasound findings, were investigated at the same time by the 125I-fibrinogen test. Eight patients developed an abnormal ultrasound scan confirmed with the fibrinogen method, and of these three developed abnormalities bilaterally, giving an incidence of thrombosis expressed in terms of legs of 5.5 per cent. Technical difficulties were encountered with this group of elderly patients, these being that in some there was difficulty in positioning the ultrasound probe and in others of producing an adequate flow noise to monitor changes effectively.