The outpatient bleeding risk index: validation of a tool for predicting bleeding rates in patients treated for deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.

Background: Long-term anticoagulation prevents recurrent thrombosis in patients with idiopathic deep venous thrombosis or pulmonary embolism, but with a risk of clinically important so-called major bleeding. Physician- and patient-based decisions on the optimal duration of therapy are sensitive to the bleeding risk. The Outpatient Bleeding Risk Index potentially provides a means of calculating the potential risk of bleeding using easily elicited clinical findings, but, to our knowledge, the authors of the index have provided the only published validation of it.