What's the Incidence of Venous Thromboembolism After Knee Arthroscopy?

A million arthroscopic knee procedures are performed annually in the U.S., according to the CDC; pharmacologic prophylaxis to prevent venous thromboembolism (VTE) is not administered routinely after this procedure. In a retrospective study from California's Kaiser Permanente health system, researchers calculated the incidence of symptomatic VTE after 21,000 recent elective knee arthroscopies. Patients with histories of VTE and patients who received prophylaxis were excluded; only 2% of patients met these exclusion criteria.

The 90-day incidence of symptomatic VTE was 0.40%, with cases divided roughly evenly between proximal deep venous thrombosis only and pulmonary embolism; only a few cases involved isolated calf-vein thromboses. VTE risk w…