Deep venous thrombosis after major abdominal surgeries: a tertiary level centre study

Abstract

Background: Deep venous thrombo-embolism is a proven major complication in the postoperative setup among the western population. Hence specific guidelines exist on thrombo-prophylaxis for surgical patients. The limited number of studies available on the Indian patients do not provide conclusive data regarding the incidence of postoperative thrombo-embolism. Also, Indian patients are not routinely given prophylactic anticoagulants in many settings still now. In this research, we studied the incidence of deep venous thrombosis among patients who underwent major abdominal surgeries, over a period of 2 years.Methods: This retrospective descriptive study was done on patients who underwent any sort of major abdominal surgery from the surgical wards of Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, for 2 years. This data was used to analyses the incidence of and factors related to postoperative deep venous thrombo-embolism.Results: We studied a total of 334 patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Among these patients, only 1.19% developed deep venous thrombosis during the post-operative period. Since no guidelines existed regarding the usage of thrombo-prophylaxis during that period, very few patients were found to have used any of the prophylactic measures.Conclusions: The incidence of postoperative deep venous thrombosis is not very high in the Indian population after major abdominal surgeries. This might be due to the relatively low prevalence of hyper-coagulable states in the community itself. As a corollary, routine chemical prophylaxis might be administered only in high risk patients. Other measures like early ambulation and mechanical prophylaxis might be used in patients with lesser risk.

Prevalence of deep vein thrombosis in heparin prophylaxis patients in general surgery department

“…All of these patients were under major abdominal surgery, and received heparin prophylaxis. DVT incidence was evaluated in these patients with duplex scan, which was reported to be 1.19%, which has a specific relationship with our study (16).…”

Narrative Review on Prevalence of Venous Thromboembolism and Public Awareness in India

“…Another retrospective descriptive study on 334 patients who underwent any sort of major abdominal surgery (>1hr duration) from Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, for 2 years. Among them, only 4 patients (1.19%) developed deep venous thrombosis during the postoperative period (Kuttanchettiyar & Chisthi, 2018).…”

Study the incidence ofpostoperative deep vein thrombosis in high and moderate risk patients’ in generalsurgical ward in a tertiary care teaching hospital, Bihar

“…In the process leading to thrombosis, the damage to vascular endothelial cells caused by abdominal surgery and tissue injury, and underlying coagulation disorders are all interrelated. 10,11 This study conducted in KM Medical College & Hospital included 75 high and moderate risk general surgical patients, with the aim to find out the incidence of DVT in them. None received chemoprophylaxis for DVT but all received mechanical prophylactic measures.…”