Comparing the diagnostic performance of 2 clinical decision rules to rule out deep vein thrombosis in primary care patients.

Purpose: The Wells rule is widely used for clinical assessment of patients with suspected deep vein thrombosis (DVT), especially in the secondary care setting. Recently a new clinical decision rule for primary care patients (the primary care rule) has been proposed, because the Wells rule is not sufficient to rule out DVT in this setting. The objective was to compare the ability of both rules to safely rule out DVT and to efficiently reduce the number of referrals for leg ultrasound investigation that would result in a negative finding.

Idiopathic superficial thrombophlebitis and the incidence of cancer in primary care patients.

Purpose: The association of spontaneous venous thromboembolism with occult malignancy is well established. Less clear is the incidence of subsequent cancer in patients with superficial thrombophlebitis. We wanted to determine the incidence of cancer after an episode of spontaneous superficial thrombophlebitis in a large general practice population.