The study was approved by the regional committee for research ethics, and all participants gave their informed, written consent to participation. All inhabitants aged over 24 years old were invited to participate, of whom 27,158 agreed to do so (77% of the eligible population). The main focus of the Tromsø study is cardiovascular risk factors and disease. Participants were recruited from the fourth survey of the Tromsø study (conducted in 1994–1995), a single-center prospective, population-based study, with repeated health surveys of inhabitants in Tromsø, Norway.
To address these questions, we performed a prospective, population-based study in 26,108 adults, followed for a median of 12.5 years, and assessed the impact of hematocrit and related hematologic variables on the risk of VTE. We, therefore, wanted to examine whether hematocrit and related hematologic variables, such as hemoglobin, RBC count and mean corpuscular volume (MCV), were associated with the incidence of VTE. The impact of hemoconcentration on the risk of VTE in a general population has, to our knowledge, not been extensively investigated in prospective studies.
8 – 12 Hematocrit has also been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in a general population.
7 It is well known that subjects with hematocrit levels above the normal range for the population, such as in primary or secondary erythrocytosis, are predisposed to both arterial cardiovascular disease and venous thrombosis. An increase in the hematocrit is associated with increased blood viscosity, 5 reduced venous return, 6 and increased adhesiveness of platelets. 4 Hematocrit, the proportion of blood volume occupied by red blood cells (RBC), is one of the major determinants of blood viscosity.
3Īs Virchow postulated, the risk of VTE is primarily related to hypercoagulability, altered blood flow, or endothelial vascular lesions. 1 Although increasing age, obesity, surgery, trauma, malignancy, immobility, pregnancy, and acute medical conditions are well-known risk factors for VTE, 1, 2 up to 30–50% of cases of VTE have no obvious predisposing factors. Venous thromboembolism (VTE), manifested as deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism, is a common, multifactorial disease with serious short- and long-term complications and potentially fatal outcome.
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