Central venous catheters and upper-extremity deep-vein thrombosis complicating immune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a transient antibody-mediated hypercoagulability state strongly associated with lower-limb deep-vein thrombosis (DVT). Whether HIT is additionally associated with upper-limb DVT--either with or without central venous catheter (CVC) use--is unknown. We therefore studied 260 patients with antibody-positive HIT to determine the influence of CVC use on frequency and localization of upper-extremity DVT in …