Venous thromboembolic complications in lower limb injuries and hip and knee arthroplasty

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is one of the most important problems of modern medicine: in developed countries, about 500 thousand patients die from it every year [3, 7]. According to a number of studies [8, 18, 62], based on the results of autopsies performed in surgical hospitals, at least 20% of deaths are associated with pulmonary embolism, while about half of the patients could be saved with timely diagnosis of venous thrombosis and adequate therapeutic and preventive measures [3, 7, 19, 70]. It seems to us relevant to discuss the problem of venous thromboembolic complications (VTEC) in traumatology and orthopedics, especially since traumatic injuries of the extremities and surgical interventions on them are high-risk situations for the development of venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism [2].