Radiolabeled peptides: overcoming the challenges of post-surgical patient management of venous thromboembolism.

The serious clinical and economic impact of venous thromboembolic (VTE) disease is undisputed. What concerns practitioners and researchers alike is the seeming inability to truly mitigate the ramification of VTE, especially in the post-surgical or postoperative subpopulation, in whom the risk of VTE is disproportionately high and often asymptomatic. Ironically, current approaches to the diagnostic evaluation of suspected VTE patients tend to favor the application of anatomic modalities, either invasive or technically challenging (eg, venography) or the performance of which is clinically inadequate (eg, ultrasonography) for post-surgical/postoperative patients.