Prevalence and potential risk factor of deep vein thrombosis in Chinese patients undergoing knee arthroscopy surgery without thromboprophylaxis in routine clinical practice: A retrospective study

Objective: To assess the prevalence of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in Chinese patients undergoing knee arthroscopy surgery without thromboprophylaxis in routine clinical practice, and to identify the associated risk factors. Materials and Methods: Medical records of 864 successive Chinese patients (≥ 18 year) who underwent different arthroscopic knee replacement surgery without thromboprophylaxis at Zhoushan Hospital, China between January 2012 to December 2014 were reviewed. Venogram of each patient was reviewed. To identify possible risk factor, age, operative time of surgical intervention, time spent in tourniquet, body mass index, gender, surgeon and type of surgical procedure was also reviewed. Univariate analysis was performed to assess the relationship between potential risk factor and DVT. Result: Of total patients, 564 (65.27%) patients had DVT as confirmed using venography. Among patients with DVT, 23% of patients had proximal DVT, whereas 42 % of patients had distal DVT. Of 65% of cases of DVT, 25% of patients experienced signs and symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, whereas no signs of deep vein thrombosis were observed in 45% of patients. Increasing age and complex surgical procedures of arthroscopy surgery are strongly linked DVT (p<0.01). Incidence of DVT was significantly higher among patients who underwent complex procedure of arthroscopy surgery compared to simple surgical procedure (p<0.01). Conclusion: Our study results suggested that high prevalence of DVT was found among Chinese patients undergoing knee arthroscopy surgery without thromboprophylaxis in routine clinical practice. We recommended close monitoring of patients undergoing advanced knee arthroscopy surgery for occurrence of DVT to prevent post-operative complications.