A Prospective Study Evaluating Patterns of Responses to the Caprini Score to Prevent Venous Thromboembolism After Interventional Treatment for Varicose Veins

BACKGROUND: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a critical complication of varicose vein treatments. The Caprini Score (CS) is an established tool to assess patients’ VTE risks. One disadvantage is the number of questions required, some of them referring to a low incidence of disease, even lower in patients seeking an elective procedure. These elements take time and may result in filling errors if the CS is not filled out by a properly trained health professional. OBJECTIVE: To establish a response pattern in CS, with emphasis on questions that usually have a negative answer and propose a simpler adaptative digital version without changing the original structure of the tool. METHODS: two hundred and twenty-seven patients in the pre-surgical treatment of varicose veins were enrolled prospectively and submitted to the CS evaluation. RESULTS: The pattern of dichotomous responses could be divided arbitrarily into four subgroups considering the percentage of positive responses: none (11 items), less than 3% (13 items), between 3% and 20% (5 items), and more than 20% (8 items). Of the 12 CS questions related to illnesses that occurred in the last month, ten had had no responses, and 2 were less than 3%. CONCLUSION: There is a pattern in the CS responses of patients with an indication of surgical treatment of varicose veins. Many of the CS questions are not helpful in this scenario and may result in filling errors performed by untrained providers. An adaptative version of the CS might benefit varicose veins surgery VTE risk stratification