Recently there has been a lot of debate about how extensive the screening for occult
cancer in patients with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) should be. Cornuz et al. was
one of the first to suggest that a limited screening comprising of a comprehensive
medical history, physical examination (including breast and rectal examination), routine
laboratory tests and chest X-ray (CXR), is an appropriate screening for occult cancer
in patients with idiopathic deep vein thrombosis (iDVT) [
[1]
]. Extensive screening with computed tomography (CT) scans did not seem to detect more
occult cancer in patients with iDVT or give any profit in cancer-related mortality
rates, in comparison with the limited screening [
2
,
3
]. To this day, in our hospital, we still apply this limited combination of diagnostics
to detect occult cancer in all patients diagnosed with a DVT. A CXR, breast- and rectal
examination is only performed in patients over 40 years of age. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if the CXR is of any additive
value in this screening for occult cancer.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- Importance of findings on the initial evaluation for cancer in patients with symptomatic idiopathic deep venous thrombosis.Ann Intern Med. 1996; 125: 785-793
- Screening for occult cancer in unprovoked venous thromboembolism.N Engl J Med. 2015; 373: 697-704
- Extensive computed tomography versus limited screening for detection of occult cancer in unprovoked venous thromboembolism: a multicenter, controlled, randomized clinical trial.Semin Thromb Hemost. 2016; 42: 884-890
- Deep-vein thrombosis and the incidence of subsequent symptomatic cancer.N Engl J Med. 1992; 327: 1128-1133
- Deep vein thrombosis in primary care: possible malignancy?.Br J Gen Pract. 2006; 56: 693-696
Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 17, 2017
Accepted:
April 11,
2017
Received:
April 9,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
