Air travel and venous thrombosis: how much help might aspirin be?

There has been considerable attention focused recently on the risk of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) associated with air travel. Despite the lack of evidence among air travelers, a single dose of aspirin has been widely recommended as a means of preventing such thrombosis. We have calculated the potential benefit of aspirin by applying the data for aspirin in preventing DVT in hip fracture patients to the estimated rates of travel-related DVT. If the rate of travel-related DVT is 20 per 100,000 travelers, then we will have to treat 17,000 people with aspirin to prevent 1 additional DVT.