This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Venous Thromboembolism  • Cardiovascular System  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Eichinger and colleagues¹ found that D-dimer levels measured after a single occurrence of idiopathic venous thromboembolism (VTE) were related to future risk of recurrent VTE. Their D-dimer cutoff levels (250 ng/mL, 500 ng/mL, and 750 mg/mL), however, are assay-specific. In ruling out VTE, for example, optimal threshold values for some enzyme-linked immunoassays (ELISAs) are as low as 40 ng/mL but may be more than 500 ng/mL for others.² Similarly, different quantitative non-ELISAs may require different cutoff values in the exclusion of VTE.^3-4 The threshold used by Eichinger et al to define those patients at low risk for recurrence (ie, <250 mg/mL) is half the value used to exclude VTE (<500 ng/mL) with that particular assay (Asserachrom D-dimer, Boehringer Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany).⁵

Thus it may be possible to state the author's conclusions in more general terms, ie, that D-dimer levels less than half the threshold level used . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Daniel J. Brotman, MD
Department of General Internal Medicine
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Cleveland, Ohio

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?