2005 Volume 16 Issue 4 Pages 235-241
An upper extremity deep vein thrombosis is rare and reported incidence of such a condition is 1-2%o of all deep vein thromboses. We treated 5 patients (6 cases) of primary axillary-subclavian vein thrombosis (Paget-Schroetter syndrome). The patients’ chief complaints were of upper extremity swelling. The patients were males aged between 21 and 52 years old (37±13.6 years old of age). Only one case was related to sports activity (baseball), another case’s occupation was a truck driver, the other cases did not seem to be related to either sports or occupation. Four of the thromboses were located in the right arm, while one was bilateral, but occurred on separate occasions. The symptoms of the all of cases were upper extremity swelling but not pain, which gradually improved with conservative therapy, including anticoagulant therapy or combined therapy (anticoagulant, antiplatelet and thrombolysis). No intravascular intervention, such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty or stenting was performed, because the results of reported stent cases were not so good in Japan. No surgical procedures, such as resection of the first rib to decompress the subclavian vein, were performed. Pulmonary embolism occurred in only one case; the bilateral case. In this report, we discuss and document our clinical experience with 6 cases of Paget-Schroetter syndrome.
