From Bloomberg:Flights lasting more than four hours about double a traveler's risk of life-threatening blood clots, World Health Organization studies found.
The clots, called venous thromboembolism, can form in the legs and can be fatal when they move into a patient's lungs. The risk of VTE also applies to travel such as car, bus and train where passengers are seated for long periods, the Geneva-based agency said in an e-mailed statement.
More than 600,000 people in the U.S. have a pulmonary embolism every year and more than 60,000 of them die, according to the country's National Institutes of Health. The disorder is one of the most common causes of death in bed-bound hospitalized people. Long airplane journeys or car trips, childbirth within the last six months as well as use of drugs including estrogen and birth control pills have also been linked to clots.
We once had a foreign exchange medical student who needed to fly home to Germany with an ankle fracture as she wasn't covered in the States for this type of thing. Before she left for the plane, we found her some heparin, and gave her some SQ for the transatlantic flight home. She made it fine, and didn't get a DVT. In retrospect, this was a really good idea. Maybe they should put coumadin in the coffee that the flight attendants serve...
Medicine Tag
Health Tag
Save This Page
No comments:
Post a Comment