Recidiefrisico van aan voorbijgaande infectie/ontsteking-gerelateerde trombose

Unprovoked venous thrombo-embolism (VTE) has a two to three fold higher risk of recurrence after cessation of anticoagulation therapy, when compared to provoked VTE. Provoked VTE is treated for only three to six months after the elimination of the provoking factor. In unprovoked VTE this cannot be achieved. The initial anticoagulation therapy is therefore extended beyond the three to six months. However, anticoagulation therapy induces a clinically relevant bleeding risk. Therefore, effort should be made to identify patient categories with a lower risk of recurrence within the group of patients with a unprovoked VTE. From 2008 to 2010 the a cohort study, the BEAST, was performed in the University Medical Center Groningen, in which patients at the emergency department presenting with pulmonary embolism and/or thrombosis were asked whether they experienced transient inflammatory/infectious signs (e.g. the flu or a cold) before the onset of the thrombosis. It was shown that these transient inflammation/infection was associated with a higher risk of thrombosis. Currently transient inflammation/infection is not considered as a risk factor for thrombosis, thus thrombosis preceded by these complaints are treated as unprovoked VTE. In this study, we aim to determine and to compare the rate of recurrent VTE in patients with provoked and unprovoked index-VTE preceded and not preceded with transient inflammation/infection-associated index-VTE in the BEAST-cohort.

We hypothesize that transient inflammation/infection-associated deep venous thrombosis has a similar recurrence risk as 'classic' provoked deep venous thrombosis.

Start of study

none