Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about deep vein thrombosis

and venous thromboembolism.

And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic, you can follow along at

zero to finals.com slash DVT or in the hematology section of the zero definals

medicine book. So let's get straight into it. Venus thromboembolism, which is shortened to VTE, is a common

and potentially fatal condition and it involves blood clots, which are thrombosis, developing in the

circulation. This usually occurs secondary to stagnation of blood and hypercoagulable states. And a hypercoagulable

state is a state in which a person is more prone to developing blood clots or thrombosis.

When a thrombosis develops in the venous circulation, it's called a deep vein thrombosis

or a DVT.

And once a thrombosis has developed, it can mobilize so it can loosen and come away and

travel through the circulation, and this is called an embolism, and it travels from the deep veins through the right side of the heart and into the lungs,

where it becomes lodged in the pulmonary arteries.

And this blocks the blood flow to areas of the lungs, and this is called a pulmonary embolism, or a P.E.

If the patient has a hole in their heart, for example, an atrial septal defect,

the blood clock can pass into the right atrium through the atrial septal defect into the left atrium

and left side of the heart and from there it can travel up in the systemic circulation to the brain

and cause a very large stroke. So if somebody presents with a very large

stroke and a DVT, think about whether they might have an atrial septal defect. Let's talk about

risk factors. There's a number of risk factors that can put a patient at higher risk of developing a

DVT or a PE. And in many of these situations, for example, in surgery, we give patients prophylactic

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