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Hip fracture surgery should be performed as soon as possible after the fracture has occurred. However, surgery sometimes is delayed to address unstable medical problems or for logistical reasons. A likely consequence of delayed surgery is excess risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE). In this study from Korea, researchers determined the prevalence of VTE among 208 consecutive hip fracture patients whose surgery was performed more than 24 hours after injury.
To identify VTE, all patients underwent preoperative indirect multidetector computed tomography (CT) venography, which combines CT pulmonary angiography and lower extremity indirect venography following a single contrast injection. Average times from injury to CT scanning and from injury t…