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Age-dependent D-dimer cut-off value increases the number of older patients in whom deep vein thrombosis can be safely excluded.

Renee A Douma 1 Melanie Tan 2 Roger Schutgens 3 Shannon M Bates 4 Arnaud Perrier 5 Cristina Legnani 6 Douwe H Biesma 7 Jeffrey S Ginsberg 4 Henri Bounameaux 8 Gualtiero Palareti 9 Marc Carrier 10 Gerben C Mol 11 Gregoire Le Gal 12, 13 Pieter W Kamphuisen 14 Marc Righini 8
1 DVM - AMC - Department of Vascular Medicine
2 SVM - Section of Vascular Medicine
3 UMCU - Department of Hematology
4 Department of Medicine
5 SMIG - Service de médecine interne générale
6 DABC - Department of Angiology and Blood Coagulation
7 StA Hospital - Internal Medicine
8 MR - Service d'angiologie et d'hémostase
9 DABC - Department of Angiology and Blood Coagulation
10 Clinical Epidemiology Unit
11 GCM - Department of Internal Medicine
12 GETBO - Groupe d'Etude de la Thrombose de Bretagne Occidentale
13 CIC - Brest - Centre d'Investigation Clinique
14 DVM - Groningen - Department of Vascular Medicine
Abstract : Background. D-Dimer testing to rule out deep vein thrombosis is less useful in older patients due to lower specificity. An age-adjusted D-dimer cut-off value increased the proportion of older patients (>50 years) in whom pulmonary embolism could be excluded. We retrospectively validated the efficacy of this cut-off combined with clinical probability for the exclusion of deep vein thrombosis. Design and Methods. Five management study cohorts of 2818 consecutive outpatients with suspected deep vein thrombosis were used. Patients with non-high or unlikely probability for deep vein thrombosis were included in the analysis; four different D-dimer tests were used. The proportion of patients with a normal D-dimer test and the failure rates were calculated using the conventional (500 μg/L) and the age-adjusted D-dimer cut-off (patient's age x 10 μg/L in patients >50 years). Results. In 1672 patients with non-high probability, deep vein thrombosis could be excluded in 850 (51%) with the age-adjusted versus 707 (42%) patients with the conventional cut-off value. The failure rates were 7 (0.8; 95% confidence interval 0.3-1.7%) for the age-adjusted and 5 (0.7%, 0.2-1.6%) for the conventional cut-off value. The absolute increase in patients in whom deep vein thrombosis could be ruled out using the age-adjusted cut-off value was largest in patients >70 years: 19% among patients with non- high probability. Conclusions. The age-adjusted cut-off of the D-dimer combined with clinical probability greatly increases the proportion of older patients in whom deep vein thrombosis can be safely excluded.
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Journal articles
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https://hal.univ-brest.fr/hal-00721408
Contributor : Ghislaine Calvez <>
Submitted on : Friday, July 27, 2012 - 1:43:21 PM
Last modification on : Thursday, May 2, 2019 - 2:00:46 PM

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Renee A Douma, Melanie Tan, Roger Schutgens, Shannon M Bates, Arnaud Perrier, et al.. Age-dependent D-dimer cut-off value increases the number of older patients in whom deep vein thrombosis can be safely excluded.. Haematologica, Ferrata Storti Foundation, 2012, epub ahead of print. ⟨10.3324/haematol.2011.060657⟩. ⟨hal-00721408⟩

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