Abstract
Recently, the incidence of postoperative pneumatic thromboembolism (PPT) has been rapidly increased in Japan, and it is essentially important to prevent PPT. During a period between May 1998 and May 2000, we had eight patients (0.17%) who developed PPT among 4, 780 consecutive patients operated on under general anesthesia, and two of them thereby died. Although the background factors were compared between the eight patients with PPT and another 16 age-, gender- and disease-matched patients without PPT (matched control group), no specific factors predicting high risk group could be identified. Since June 2000, accordingly, we have routinely applied an intermittent sequential pneumatic compression of the legs (IP) for a postoperative one day after intubation over thromboembolism-deterrent stockings (ES) which are put on before entering the operating room until starting to walk, for all patients who undergo surgery under general anesthesia. As a result, none (0%) of consecutive 5, 645 patients after June 2000 developed PPT, to date. The incidence of 0% is significantly low compared with 0.17% in patients before June 2000. This combined use of ES with IP is helpful to prevent PPT especially for non-pediatric patients in the cancer center.
