[5 years' general drug prevention of thromboembolism in general surgery. Comparison of personal experiences with results from the literature].

Despite wide use of physical methods the number of fatal postoperative pulmonary embolisms in surgical patients increased in Kiel until 1976. Because of these results, additional general prophylaxis with 2-3 X 5000 i U of heparin-dihydroergotamine was introduced in 1978. The rate of fatal pulmonary embolism in general surgery proven by autopsy decreased to 0,3% between 1979 and 1983. It should be noted that six of the nine patients who died from pulmonary embolism had also suffered from an infaust disease. This is an excellent result since our study also includes high risk patients after emergency surgery, cases which Kakkar and Gruber did not include in their studies. Due to the extensive analysis of medical records and the pertinent post-mortem reports, the high effectivity of drug induced prophylaxis with 2-3 X 5000 i U of heparin-dihydroergotamine in order to reduce fatal pulmonary embolism in general surgery could be proven.