The real value of thrombophilia markers in identifying patients at high risk of venous thromboembolism.

Thrombophilia is defined as a condition predisposing to the development of venous thromboembolic complications. Over the past decades, there have been great advances in the understanding of the pathogenesis of venous thromboembolism (VTE) through the identification of several inherited and acquired risk factors. However, in spite of such progress, a number of questions remain unanswered. In particular, it is well known that some subjects carrying several risk factors for VTE will never experience a thrombotic episode while other individuals developed recurrent thromboembolic events with no known risk factor. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the various thrombophilia markers, and also discuss their role in the development of thrombotic complications.