Introduction

Routine preventive anticoagulant therapy – thromboprophylaxis – is an established standard of care for the prevention of VTE in patients who have had major orthopaedic surgery.1

• Thromboprophylaxis has also proven to be cost-effective in moderate- and high-risk general surgery patients
• In acutely ill, hospitalized medical patients, pharmacological prophylaxis is also recommended, although the optimal duration of therapy is not well defined2

Despite the well-recognized risks of VTE, use of appropriate prophylaxis remains low. A multinational, cross-sectional audit including 32 countries – the ENDORSE (Epidemiologic International Day for the Evaluation of Patients at Risk for Venous Thromboembolism in the Acute Hospital Care Setting) survey – showed that:3,4

• 64% of surgical patients were at risk of VTE, but only just over half of these received recommended prophylaxis
• Only 39.5% of at-risk medical patients received recommended prophylaxis
• Only half all the patients considered to be at risk of VTE received appropriate thromboprophylaxis, although this varied between countries