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When managing patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE), clinicians’ main concern is new or recurrent pulmonary embolism (PE). To prevent death from PE, long-term anticoagulant therapy often is prescribed. However, this approach has several drawbacks, including risk for major hemorrhage, restrictions on activities that might incur bleeding, inconvenience of taking daily medication, and requisite frequent monitoring of prothrombin time. Shortening the duration of anticoagulation often is considered for patients whose initial VTE was provoked by surgery, trauma, hormonal therapy, pregnancy, or prolonged immobilization, but little data are available about whether risks for fatal PE are low enough to justify this practice.
Investigators from un…