HSC Section 3 - Trauma, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine

V ENOUS THROMBOEMBOLISM IN OTOLARYNGOLOGY

FIGURE 2. (A) Forest plot (I 2 5 99.3%) and (B) funnel plot of incidence of venous thromboembolism and (C) forest plot (I 2 5 98.2%) and (D) funnel plot of bleeding in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery, all studies combined. 95% CI, confidence interval (Continued on next page). [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

anticoagulation protocols were not systematically reported in any of these studies, as none of these studies specifically reported the name, dosing, and duration of use of the phar- macological agent for all patients, nor did any of the studies differentiate between intraoperative and postoperative use. Venous thromboembolism incidence and bleeding complications The incidence of VTE was calculated as the addition of all cases of DVT and PE for each study. A forest plot of

was reported with varying degrees of precision in 10 stud- ies. However, only 3 studies had complete data regarding (1) the specific anticoagulation protocol and (2) a break- down of incidence of VTE in an anticoagulated versus a nonanticoagulated group. 6,8,13 There was a varying degree of use of sequential compressive devices in these studies, with 1 reporting their use by 1315/3498 (37.6%), 6 the sec- ond by 100/100 (100.0%), 8 and the third stated that “most” patients used sequential compressive devices, 13 although the duration of use of sequential compressive devices was not specifically reported in any of these studies. The

HEAD & NECK—DOI 10.1002/HED JUNE 2017

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