Color doppler ultrasonography and venography for the detection of deep venous thrombosis in patients who had a fracture of the hip

We performed a prospective trial in patients who had a fracture of the hip with high risk for the devolopment of deep venous thrombosis (OVT). There were thirty patients in the study who had femoral neck, intertrochanteric and subtrochanteric fractures. The average age of the patients was 61.3 (40-92). Twenty-eight patients were assessed preoperatively and thirty patients were assessed postoperatively by color doppler ultrasonography (US) and venography. Deep venous thrombosis were identified in seven (25.9%) patients using venography and in four (14.8%) patients using color doppler US in proximal veins preoperatively. AII of the patients had a prophylactic regimen with iow molecular weight heparin (LMWH) 12 hours before the operation and elastic stockings postoperatively. Despite this, deep venous thrombosis were identified in proximal veins in 11(36.6%) patients using venography, and in (26.6%) patients using color doppler US at 7-14 (average 10) days postoperatively. One patient died on the 8th day postoperatively. Conclusively, we found that 2/3 of the patients who had DVT postoperatively also had DVT preoperatively despite the LMWH prophylaxis, 1 0. 7% of the patients developed DVT postoperatively and one of them (3.3%) died for pulmonary embolism (PE).