High prevalence of inherited prothrombotic risk factors in 134 consecutive patients with von Willebrand disease.

We screened 134 consecutive patients with von Willebrand disease (VWD) (106 type 1, 26 type 2, and 2 type 3 VWD) for the most important inherited prothrombotic risk factors. One hundred eight patients (80.6%) were positive for at least one of the prothrombotic risk factors screened for. A high prevalence of prothrombin G20210A (10.5%) and factor V Leiden (11.9%) mutations was found with allele frequencies of 5.2 and 6%, respectively. Three carriers of multiple prothrombotic gene mutations experienced a thrombotic event. Our study suggests that the recent evidence of an association between inherited thrombotic and hemorrhagic disorders also holds true in VWD patients.