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Most physicians treat deep-vein thrombosis with a continuous intravenous infusion of heparin, but continuous infusion has disadvantages, such as immobilization of the patient and the risk of sepsis from the intravenous line. Because studies comparing this method with subcutaneous heparin injection have yielded conflicting results, these authors performed a meta-analysis.
Six of the eight studies published to date met the authors' criteria for methodologic rigor. Analysis of these six studies showed that patients receiving subcutaneous heparin were less likely to have extension or recurrence of deep-vein thrombosis than patients given continuous IV heparin (overall relative risk, 0.62). Subcutaneous heparin also appeared less likely than cont…