In reply: O’Reilly and colleagues belatedly address the need to consider bleeding risk and costs when choosing between management routines designed to prevent venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Their otherwise valuable article1 failed to record bleeding rates when patients (almost 17%) with subclinical calf-vein thrombosis were exposed to therapeutic (not prophylactic) anticoagulant dosages. Nor did they evaluate the dollar and manpower costs of their complex management routines.
The full article is accessible to AMA
members and paid subscribers.
Login to MJA or subscribe now.
- 1. O’Reilly RF, Burgess IA, Zicat B. The prevalence of venous thromboembolism after hip and knee replacement surgery. Med J Aust 2005; 182: 154-159. <MJA full text>
- 2. Geerts WH, Pineo GF, Heit JA, et al. Prevention of venous thromboembolism: the Seventh ACCP Conference on Antithrombotic and Thrombolytic Therapy. Chest 2004; 126 (3 Suppl): 338S-400S.
- 3. Guyatt G, Schunemann HJ, Cook D, et al. Applying the grades of recommendation for antithrombotic and thrombolytic therapy: the Seventh ACCP Conference on Antithrombotic and Thrombolytic Therapy. Chest 2004; 126 (3 Suppl): 179S-187S.
Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.
The author has received consulting fees for participating in clinical trial steering committees (from Sanofi, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bayer and Organon) and expert committees (from AstraZeneca, Bayer and CSL).