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The use of anticoagulant prophylaxis for medical inpatients has been growing in recent years. To determine the efficacy of this intervention, researchers summarized results from nine randomized controlled trials (involving 19,958 patients) that compared anticoagulant prophylaxis with no treatment in hospitalized medical patients.
Anticoagulant prophylaxis was not associated with decreased mortality. Prophylaxis did decrease the rate of symptomatic deep venous thrombosis (from 0.81% with no prophylaxis to 0.38% with prophylaxis, a difference of borderline significance), and significantly reduced the rates of fatal pulmonary embolism (from 0.39% to 0.14%) and of any pulmonary embolism (from 0.49% to 0.20%). Prophylaxis was associated with a no…