Emergency. 2018; 6 (1): e13 LE T T E R TO ED I TO R Dissimilarity in the Frequency of Venous Thromboem- bolism Risk Factors among Studies, a Commentary Meghdad Sedaghat1∗, Mahsa Soltani1, Mehrdad Solooki2 1. Department of Internal Medicine, Imam Hossein Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 2. Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Imam Hossein Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Received: January 2018; Accepted: February 2018; Published online: 18 Febryary 2018 Cite this article as: Dissimilarity in the Frequency of Venous Thromboembolism Risk Factors among Studies, a Commentary. Emergency. 2018; 6(1): e13. Dear Editor; Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) is the 3rd most preva- lent vascular disease behind myocardial infarction and cere- brovascular ischemic attack (1). This disorder has received attention from health policy makers because of its major complications including recurrent VTE, post thrombotic syn- drome, sudden cardiac death and high mortality rate (2). In the United States, VTE was reported in approximately 201000 cases annually, 25% of which expired within 7 days after di- agnosis and 22% of mortalities did not have a definitive diag- nosis. Despite the progression in diagnosis and treatment of VTE since 1979, its incidence did not decrease dramatically. This gap declares that VTE risk factors, especially transient ones, have not been detected completely (3). Obesity, history of VTE, family history of VTE, recent surgery, malignancy, myeloproliferative disorders, trauma, preg- nancy, post-menopausal hormone therapy, hereditary syn- dromes like anti phospholipid syndrome (APS), chronic kid- ney disease (CKD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), blood transfusion and older age are determined as major risk factors. These factors can be categorized into two major subgroups as intrinsic and predisposing. Recent in- vestigations focused on predisposing ones, which can be jus- tified (2, 4). Designing a cross sectional study in Imam Hossein Hospital, Tehran, Iran, from 2016 to 2017, we found that inactivity due to disability (30.9%), smoking (29.3%), and active malignancy (18.1%), were the most prevalent transient risks factor of VTE in our sample, respectively. Similar to our results, Kesieme et al. (5) and Cushman et al. (2) declared that VTE is more ∗Corresponding Author: Meghdad Sedaghat; Department of Internal Medicine, Imam Hossein Hospital, Shahid Madani Avenue, Imam Hos- sein Square, Tehran, Iran. Email: sedaghat6161@gmail.com Phone: 00989128121361 diagnosed in the elderly. Park MS et al. (3) introduced re- cent surgery, trauma (73%), and disability to walk (62%) as major independent risk factors of VTE. Fuji T et al. (6) intro- duced malignancy, recent infectious disease, and obesity as the factors predisposing patients who were admitted for or- thopedic surgery to VTE. As can be seen, despite the risk fac- tors of VTE being the same in various studies, their frequency varied between the studies. Population and cultural charac- teristics and various habits may have an effect in this regard. Therefore, it is suggested to perform a multi-center, compre- hensive study considering all the racial and ethnic in order to have a correct pattern of the frequency of predisposing fac- tors of this disease in the Iranian population for health and prevention programs. 1. Appendix 1.1. Author contribution All the authors meet the standard authorship criteria accord- ing to the recommendations of international committee of medical journal editors. 1.2. Funding/Support None. 1.3. Conflict of interest The authors declare that there is no conflict. References 1. 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This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Downloaded from: www.jemerg.com Appendix References