Loading...
When a patient presents with an idiopathic venous thrombosis (VT; a thrombus not associated with surgery, trauma, or malignancy), the clinician must answer two questions: Should the patient (proband) be tested for thrombophilia to determine the underlying cause of VT? And, if a thrombophilic defect is found, should the proband’s family members be tested? Most clinicians would order testing of the proband, but the decision to test family members would depend on their perceived risk for VT.
To provide an evidence-based approach to determining suitability of family testing, investigators in the Netherlands performed a retrospective study of 2479 family members of 877 probands to assess absolute risks for first and recurrent VT among these relat…