Abstract
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is one of the major postoperative complications. We randomly allocated 32 patients who underwent abdominal surgery for stomach or large intestine cancer to an intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) or enoxaparin group, and investigated the effectiveness and safety of enoxaparin in preventing postoperative VTE in clinical practice. As a result, DVT was noted in 4 of the 21 patients in the IPC group and none of the 11 patients in the enoxaparin group. The D-dimer level was significantly lower in the enoxaparin than IPC group on the 7th postoperative day and thereafter. No adverse event was noted in either group. Among 18 patients in whom we could investigate the association between DVT and the arterial blood flow rate in lower limbs, 6 patients who developed DVT (including 2 patients with a postoperative onset) showed a greater difference in the arterial blood flow rate between left and right lower limbs than 12 patients who did not develop DVT. These results suggest that enoxaparin is more useful in preventing postoperative VTE than IPC, and that the difference in the arterial blood flow rate between left and right lower limbs may be an additional predictor of VTE onset.
