March Is DVT Awareness Month

I would like to thank Dr. Criado for inviting me to serve as guest editor for Vascular Disease Management this month. It is an honor for me to serve in this role as March is a special month as it serves as DVT awareness month. DVT prevention and management is a tremendous issue in healthcare in 2011. The majority of medical centers continue to focus their patient safety initiatives at lowering the incidence of deep venous thrombosis rates in hospitalized patients. This is especially true for post-operative or post-procedure DVT rates. The incidence of DVT is reported at 117 cases per 100,000 people. This leads to more than 200,000 cases of DVT in the United States each year. In addition, 50,000 of these cases are complicated by pulmonary embolus. Another staggering statistic is that slightly less than 1% of all patients undergoing general anesthesia will suffer a fatal pulmonary embolus. This number increases to 7% of all patients treated for hip fractures. I wanted to focus this issue on specific problems and treatment paradigms affiliated with DVT that would be interesting to the readers of Vascular Disease Management. May-Thurner Syndrome, IVC filter placement, and thrombolytic and mechanical thrombectomy treatment are the main focus of this issue with regard to venous thrombosis. Dr. Al-Nouri and I focused our May-Thurner article on the history, clinical presentation, diagnosis and management of patients with May-Thurner leading to ilio-femoral DVT. IVC filters are commonly used for patients who are at high-risk for anticoagulation. This is especially true in ICU patients that are critically ill and are best treated with a bedside procedure. Dr. Marc Passman eloquently reviews the use of IVUS-guided filter insertion. In addition, he reviews the IVC filters that are available to be inserted. Finally, Dr. Frank Arko cares for many patients with the diagnosis of DVT. He has developed excellent treatment algorithms to treat the acute problem and prevent the long-term sequelae of post-phlebitic syndrome. The combination of topics should be useful to all readers of Vascular Disease Management.

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From the Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois. The author reports no conflicts of interest regarding the content herein. Address for correspondence: Ross Milner, MD, FACS, Chief, Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Vice Chair, Clinical Research, Loyola University Medical Center, 2160 S. First Avenue, Maywood, IL 60153. E-mail: rmilner@lumc.edu