The incidence and clinical pattern of deep vein thrombosis in the Chinese in Hong Kong.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a common disease seen in western hospitals! There is a great difficulty in surveying the true incidence of venous thromboembolism in a community. Most data on incidence are related to clinically recognisable cases. It is generally believed that there is a marked ethnical and geographical difference in the incidence of venous thromboembolism. Hume in 1966 estimated an incidence of about 182,000 cases per year in England,1 extrapolating from the International Classification of Disease (ICD) coded DVT diagnosis using a segment of the hospital population. Coon in a different approach, using a longitudinal study in a community, estimated about 250,000 cases per year in U.S.A.2 However literature from the Asian -African regions are scarce and generally reported a lower incidence of post -operative thrombembolic disease.a 4 Clinical observations indicated that venous thromboembolism is rare among the Chinese in Beijing with proximal fractures of femur, and even among some high risk orthopaedic patients in Hong Kong Chinese5.6 Subsequent prospective studies in high risk patients in Hong Kong confirmed that, although deep vein thrombosis does occur in Chinese in Hong Kong, its occurrence and the complication of pulmonary embolism were much lower compared with western data 7-10 The Chinese community in Hong Kong have been modifying their life style during the process of industrialization and modernization. With more aging of our population, many previously "western diseases" including hypertension and coronary artery disease are becoming more common, and pulmonary thromboembolism has been identified and reported.11-14 The present study reviews the incidence and pattern of deep vein thrombosis among the Chinese in Hong Kong.