A new study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine examines the risk factors for venous thromboembolism in spine surgery patients.
The researchers examined the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project database from 2006 to 2010 and examined the clinical factors for VTE. There were 22,434 patients included in the study. The researchers found:
1. The VTE rate was 1.1 percent, with 0.4 percent reporting pulmonary embolism and 0.8 percent reporting deep vein thrombosis.
2. The preoperative factors associated with VTE were:
• Dependent functional status
• Paraplegia and quadriplegia
• Disseminated cancer
• Inpatient status
• Hypertension
• Transient ischemic attack history
• Sepsis
• African American race
3. The operative factors associated with VTE were:
• Surgeries longer than four hours
• Emergency presentation
• American Society of Anesthesiology class III, IV or V
4. The only significant postoperative factor associated with VTE was sepsis.
5. The patients who had a risk score of seven or above, based on a scale the researchers developed, had a 100-fold increased risk of VTE when compared with patients who scored zero on the risk scale.