Risk factors like oral contraceptives, pregnancy, and obesity pose a higher risk for DVT than pulmonary embolism, whereas pulmonary conditions pose a higher risk for pulmonary embolism than DVT.
Case-Control
Do established risk factors for venous thrombosis have differential effects on the risk of deep-vein thrombosis versus pulmonary embolism?
The study demonstrates that deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism have distinct risk factor profiles, suggesting they may not always share the exact same etiology.
Risk factors for deep-vein thrombosis have been shown not to be always the same as for pulmonary embolism. A well-known example is the factor V Leiden (FVL) paradox: the FVL mutation poses a clearly higher risk for deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) than for pulmonary embolism. We aimed to expand this paradox and therefore present risk estimates for several established risk factors for DVT and pulmonary embolism separately. When such separate risk estimates could not be retrieved from the literature, we calculated these risks in our own data, a large population-based case-control study on venous thrombosis (the MEGA study). Our results showed that the FVL paradox can be broadened (ie, the risk factors oral contraceptive use, pregnancy, puerperium, minor leg injuries, and obesity have an effect comparable with FVL). Furthermore, we found that pulmonary conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, and sickle cell disease, were risk factors with an opposite effect: a higher risk of pulmonary embolism, but little or no effect on DVT. These findings suggest that pulmonary embolism and DVT may not always have the same etiology, and encourage unraveling this phenomenon in further studies.
Langevelde et al. (Wed,) conducted a case-control in Venous thrombosis (deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism). Risk factors for venous thrombosis was evaluated on Risk of deep-vein thrombosis versus pulmonary embolism. Risk factors like oral contraceptives, pregnancy, and obesity pose a higher risk for DVT than pulmonary embolism, whereas pulmonary conditions pose a higher risk for pulmonary embolism than DVT.