Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs in ~0.2% of all gynecologic surgeries, with a decreased risk in minimally invasive vs opening surgical approaches, a new study found. Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of all patients who underwent gynecologic surgery from May 2006 to June 2015 at 2 tertiary care academic hospitals in Massachusetts. They evaluated the incidence of postoperative VTE after gynecologic surgery by mode of incision. They found:

• 43,751 surgical encounters among 37,485 individual patients were noted during the study.
• Overall incidence of VTE was 0.2% for all gynecologic surgeries, 0.7% for hysterectomy, and 0.2% for myomectomy.
• Patients who underwent minimally invasive gynecologic surgery were less likely to develop VTE when compared with patients undergoing laparotomy.