Low Rate of Intrahospital Deep Venous Thrombosis in Acutely Ill Medical Patients: Results From the AURELIO Study

Objective: To evaluate the effect of hospitalization on deep venous thrombosis (DVT) rate by the cumulative
incidence of DVT in the proximal venous tract of the lower limbs at admission and discharge.
Methods: The AURELIO (rAte of venoUs thRombosis in acutEly iLl patIents hOspitalized in internal
medicine wards) multicenter observational study was carried out in hospital-university internal
medicine wards including consecutive acutely ill medical patients. Patients underwent compression
ultrasonography (CUS) of proximal lower limb veins at admission and discharge. The occurrence of
DVT was the primary end point of the study.
Results: Among 1340 patients, 26 (1.9%; 95% CI, 1.3%-2.8%) had asymptomatic DVT at admission
and were excluded. During the follow-up, 144 patients were excluded because of hospitalization less
than 5 days. The remaining 1170 patients underwent a CUS at discharge. Two hundred fifty (21%)
underwent prophylaxis with parenteral anticoagulants; the remaining 920 (79%) were not treated with
anticoagulants. The mean length of hospitalization was 138 days. Compared with patients without
prophylaxis, those treated with parenteral anticoagulants had a higher incidence of active cancer, heart
and respiratory failure, pneumonia, renal failure, previous venous thromboembolism, reduced
mobility, and elderly age. During the hospital stay, 3 patients with a negative CUS at admission
experienced DVT in the proximal tract (0.025%, rate of 1 per 5017 patient-days); 2 of them were in
prophylaxis with parenteral anticoagulants.
Conclusion: We provide evidence that in the real world acutely ill medical patients display more than
90% (1.9%) asymptomatic DVT at admission, whereas the intrahospital DVT occurrence is very low.
This suggests a novel diagnostic workup and a careful reanalysis of anticoagulant prophylaxis.