Every Five Minutes Someone Dies from a Blood Clot
More than 17,000 Americans have already died in 2010 from blood clots in the lungs. The Vascular Disease Foundation’s Venous Disease Coalition, reminds us of this sobering fact on its homepage with a new counting widget at www.venousdiseasecoalition.org, and urges Americans to learn the risks of venous blood clots to help prevent these deaths.
The condition, called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), occurs when a blood clot forms in the deep veins, usually of the leg. DVT can be dangerous in two ways.
First, DVT can be fatal if a blood clot breaks free and travels through the heart and into the lungs. This complication, called pulmonary embolism (PE), causes between 100,000 and 300,000 deaths per year in the United States. Second, because blood clots can permanently damage the veins, as many as half of DVT survivors can experience long-term leg pain, heaviness and swelling that can progress to difficulty walking, changes in skin color and open leg sores (known as ulcers). This condition, called post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS) or “chronic venous insufficiency”, can significantly impair quality of life.
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