Prevention of postvenographic thrombosis by heparin flush: fibrinogen uptake measurements.

The incidence of postphlebographic venous thrombosis was investigated by 125I-labeled fibrinogen uptake tests in 60 patients whose veins were flushed with saline solution containing 10,000 IU of heparin after leg phlebography. Ionic methylglucamine iodamide was used as the contrast medium. In six patients superficial thrombophlebitis extending from the contrast-medium injection site was observed after phlebography. The incidence of deep venous thrombosis was 3.3%, significantly less than that reported for studies using triiodinated ionic contrast media without flushing the veins with a heparin solution. It is comparable to the incidence of venous thrombosis reported after using nonionic contrast media. The authors conclude that flushing the veins with heparinized saline solution can improve the safety of phlebography considerably.