Axillary vein thrombosis in a blood donor.

Abstract

Axillary vein thrombosis is not a rare disorder, but the vast majority of recorded cases are of the effort type. Other types mentioned in the literature are those complicating heart failure either from stasis or from intravenous administration of mercurial diuretics and those due to obstruction by neoplasms or operative scars. Complications of donating blood are, as a rule, infrequent and usually of small consequence. Those seen oftenest are transient discomfort in the arm from which the blood was withdrawn (10% of 40,000 donors surveyed by Boynton) or simple syncope. Thrombophlebitis of the vein is a rare complication and occurred in only 13 of Boynton's cases. This almost always affects one of the veins of the antecubital fossa but may extend up the arm and down the forearm and, in rare instances, may be of the migratory type involving even the leg veins. In all these cases, infection apparently played