Three critical recommendations from a national workshop have been released to address deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), a growing public health problem estimated to affect nearly 1 million Americans each year. The recommendations - developed by a diverse group of representatives from federal health agencies and patient groups, as well as experts from the medical and public health communities - appear in the March 9, 2010, Supplement to American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM): Blood Disorders in Public Health - Making the Connection. AJPM is a publication of the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) and Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR). The special supplement is being released in conjunction with the first annual National Conference on Blood Disorders in Public Health on March 9-11, 2010, in Atlanta, GA.
Normal blood clotting is important for preventing excessive bleeding due to injury; however, in DVT a clot forms inside a deep vein, usually in the lower limbs. If left untreated, the clot can break loose and travel to the lungs, a life-threatening condition called PE. An estimated 300,000 people die from PE in the United States each year.
"DVT is of such concern that the U.S. Surgeon General issued a call to action last fall to help raise public awareness about the disorder and increase research on the causes, prevention, and treatment for DVT and PE," said Gary Raskob, PhD, lead author of the AJPM paper and Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. "Though it's a common disorder, DVT is highly preventable. That's why spreading the word about who's at risk and the steps one can take to prevent these dangerous clots is so important."
The recommendations, developed by a group of experts convened by the American Society of Hematology (ASH), are: