Deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism: the same disease?

The clinical characteristics and 3-month clinical outcome of 7,664 patients with acute deep vein thrombosis(DVT), 3,968 patients with pulmonary embolism(PE), and 2,287 with signs of both DVT and PE were compared. As compared to patients with DVT signs, PE patients were more commonly females, older and had less often cancer, prior VTE or recent surgery. By contrast, they had more often chronic lung disease,chronic heart failure or renal insufficiency. Patients with both DVT and PE signs were also more commonly females and older than those with only DVT signs, but they had more often a prior episode VTE, cancer, chronic lung disease, chronic heart failure or renal insufficiency. As for the 3-month clinical outcome,patients with PE signs had a significantly higher incidence of major bleeding, recurrent PE, fatal PE and overall death than those with only DVT signs,but a lower incidence of recurrent DVT. Besides, patients with DVT and PE signs had an even worse clinical outcome.