Venous thromboembolism in abdominoplasty: a prevention protocol

INTRODUCTION: Abdominoplasty is an accomplished cosmetic surgery, in which the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) must be considered, based on the predisposing factors involved and their severity. There are, to date, no well-defined protocols for VTE prophylaxis in plastic surgery. The objective of this paper is to present a protocol for the prophylaxis of VTE used in the Plastic Surgery Service of the Hospital e Maternidade Celso Pierro (HMCP) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC) de Campinas in São Paulo (SP), while also showing the incidence of VTE in patients undergoing abdominoplasties before and after initiation of the protocol, as well as the incidence of hematomas after the total period of 6 years. METHODS: For the creation of this protocol, medical records of patients who underwent abdominoplasty from January 2010 to December 2015 were revised, identifying cases of VTE in this period, associated or not with the use of pharmacological prophylaxis, and those of hematoma after initiation of the protocol. RESULTS: The protocol for prophylaxis of VTE that has been used in the service since 2014 is based on the Anger Protocol and includes non-pharmacological measures and pharmacological measures. Two hundred and forty-three medical records were analyzed in this study. After initiation of the protocol, no cases of VTE were observed in the 74 patients who underwent abdominoplasty, and only one case of hematoma was observed. Before the protocol was initiated, VTE developed in 2 cases among 169 operated patients. CONCLUSION: After adopting the VTE prophylaxis protocol, we achieved an incidence of 0% VTE in the abdominoplasties in this period, compared to an incidence of 1.18% before the protocol. The incidence of bruising after surgery was 1.35%, which is comparable to rates in the literature for surgery without the use of pharmacological prophylaxis.