The incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pediatric patients is increasing, especially hospital-acquired VTE, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. The increasing incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in children is thought to be largely due to more aggressive care of children with serious and life-threatening disorders, as well as prolonged survival of children with chronic diseases. Most of the available current published data consists of various meta-analyses of a few small, single-institution original case-control studies, expert consensus guidelines, survey results, or extrapolation from adult studies.
The United States Surgeon General highlights the importance of focusing on this disease area in the Healthy People 2020 initiative. As stated in this document, one of the main healthcare objectives to achieve by the year 2020 is to reduce the number of people who develop a VTE by at least 10%, with specific emphasis on hospitalized patients, due to their increased risk from acute illness and decreased mobility. Additionally, recent publications have highlighted the undue cost burden of VTE both on inpatient and outpatient settings. Thus there is a great need for an article collection that could highlight pediatric-specific VTE risk factors, guidelines for risk assessment, prevention efforts, as well as educating the medical community about this serious, sometimes overlooked medical condition in children.
We propose to take a deep look into pediatric VTE by welcoming pediatric thrombosis experts to write about hospital-acquired VTE, community-acquired VTE, thrombosis in acutely ill children, neonates, adolescents and those with high risk medical issues such as cancer or congenital heart disease. We also would like to address treatment for VTE in children, such as systemic and catheter directed tPA, as well as the various new oral direct-acting anticoagulants (many of which are expected to gain FDA approval for pediatrics in the coming years) and for which few written guidelines exist). Currently, there is no single resource to address all of these issues for our children, and we think Frontiers in Pediatrics will be the perfect opportunity to highlight this timely and high-impact topic due to the increasing incidence of this problem.
The incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pediatric patients is increasing, especially hospital-acquired VTE, leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. The increasing incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in children is thought to be largely due to more aggressive care of children with serious and life-threatening disorders, as well as prolonged survival of children with chronic diseases. Most of the available current published data consists of various meta-analyses of a few small, single-institution original case-control studies, expert consensus guidelines, survey results, or extrapolation from adult studies.
The United States Surgeon General highlights the importance of focusing on this disease area in the Healthy People 2020 initiative. As stated in this document, one of the main healthcare objectives to achieve by the year 2020 is to reduce the number of people who develop a VTE by at least 10%, with specific emphasis on hospitalized patients, due to their increased risk from acute illness and decreased mobility. Additionally, recent publications have highlighted the undue cost burden of VTE both on inpatient and outpatient settings. Thus there is a great need for an article collection that could highlight pediatric-specific VTE risk factors, guidelines for risk assessment, prevention efforts, as well as educating the medical community about this serious, sometimes overlooked medical condition in children.
We propose to take a deep look into pediatric VTE by welcoming pediatric thrombosis experts to write about hospital-acquired VTE, community-acquired VTE, thrombosis in acutely ill children, neonates, adolescents and those with high risk medical issues such as cancer or congenital heart disease. We also would like to address treatment for VTE in children, such as systemic and catheter directed tPA, as well as the various new oral direct-acting anticoagulants (many of which are expected to gain FDA approval for pediatrics in the coming years) and for which few written guidelines exist). Currently, there is no single resource to address all of these issues for our children, and we think Frontiers in Pediatrics will be the perfect opportunity to highlight this timely and high-impact topic due to the increasing incidence of this problem.
