A new study published Wednesday finds that surgical stockings designed to prevent blood clots in stroke patients perform no better than routine care.
Doctors typically advise patients to wear the thigh-length stockings to help minimize the risk of clots forming and traveling to the heart or lungs, where they can sometimes be fatal.
Millions of the graduated stockings are provided to stroke victims each year in hopes the garments will reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a potentially lethal blood clot that forms in the leg.
The condition is often referred to as “economy-class syndrome”, since airline passengers sitting for long flights in cramped airline seating sometimes develop the clot because of poor blood circulation in their legs.
However, DVT can occur in any position where an individual is sedentary for long periods of time, and hospitalized stroke patients particularly at risk.
Doctors in Britain conducted a study of 2,500 bedridden patients who had been admitted to hospitals in Italy, Australia and Britain within one week of having a stroke.
Half received standard hospitalized care for strokes, while the rest received normal care plus the compression stockings. The patients were checked twice for clots by an ultrasound scanner.
The results of the study found that 10.0 percent of the stockings group had suffered a DVT, while 10.5 percent of the routine-care group had ““ a difference that was statistically insignificant.
Furthermore, five times as many patients who wore the stockings had suffered blisters, skin breaks and skin ulcers.
“Abandoning this ineffective and sometimes uncomfortable treatment will free up significant health resources — both funding and nurse time — which might be better used to help stroke patients,” wrote lead researcher Martin Dennis of the University of Edinburgh.
The study was published on Wednesday in The Lancet medical journal. A summary can be viewed here.
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