[Prevention of deep-vein thrombosis in patients with gynaecological cancer undergoing radiotherapy. A comparison of calcium heparin and a semisynthetic heparin analogue (author's transl)].

Patients treated for gynaecological cancer by combined external irradiation and intravaginal radium application participated in two randomized, controlled, and prospective trials. In the first trial the incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) diagnosed by the 125I-fibrinogen test was 43% in the control group. The injection of 7,500 i.u. of subcutaneous calcium heparin twice daily prevented DVT in the test group. An increase of soluble fibrin monomer complexes (SFMC) and fibrinogen in the plasma of patients with DVT suggested that the patients were hypercoagulable. No correlation between AT III values and DVT was observed. In the second trial, the effect of the same dose of heparin was compared with a twice daily s.c. injection of 5,000 U of a semi-synthetic heparin analogue (SSHA). The incidence of DVT was reduced to 15% by heparin; in the patients given SSHA the incidence was 25%, which was not significantly different from the heparin-treated group.