Abstract
Objective: The purpose behind this study was to determine the incidence and risk factors associated with post tibial plateau fracture deep venous thrombosis (DVT)
 Materials and Methods: A prospective study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital, Indus Medical College & Hospital, Tando Muhammad Khan to recruit those patients who were undergoing orthopedic surgeries during the periods of eighteen months. All the adult patients of both gender planned for surgery due to tibial plateau fracture were enrolled under this study. Duplex ultrasound was performed to detect the presence of underlying postoperative DVT. Post-operatively patients were assessed for potential risk factors associated with higher incidence of DVT. 
 Results: For the final analysis, 344 patients were included among them majority were males (n = 219, 63.66%) with overall mean age and SD was 47.52±12.02 years. The most common cause of fracture was road traffic accident (n = 178, 51.74%). The overall incidence of post-operative DVT observed in our study was 9.30% (n = 32). Mean age 40.19±6.10 years, increased mean duration of operation 3.01±.078 hours, increased mean duration of post-hospitalization 18.49±7.37 days, raised mean WBC counts 20.12±5.64, and increased mean D-dimer levels 3.24±3.09 (laboratory cut off value 0.5mg/L) were significantly associated with higher incidence of DVT in patients operated for tibial plateau fractures.
 Conclusion: This prospective analysis has identified the potential modifiable risk factors associated with DVT. Consideration should be given to the preventable and treatable risk factors to prevent from the DVT associated complications.
Highlights
Following surgery of lower limb, deep venous thrombosis (DVT) could be the potential reason of pulmonary embolism and associated morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients especially in patients with trauma
Based on the Schatzker classification system most of the fractures were classified as type 1-IV (n = 230, 66.86%) while 33.13% (n = 114) fractures were classified as type V-IV
The overall incidence of post-operative DVT observed in our study was 9.30% (n = 32)
Summary
Following surgery of lower limb, deep venous thrombosis (DVT) could be the potential reason of pulmonary embolism and associated morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients especially in patients with trauma. The overall incidence of tibial shaft fracture, 16.9/1000,000/years, tibial diaphyseal fracture accounts for 40%, and tibial plateau fractures accounts for 1-2% of all adult fractures and almost 32% of periknee fractures [1,2,3,4]. Epidemiological studies focusing on tibial plateau fracture is still lacking. Junyong Li and colleagues [9] have conducted a study but it does not cover the population residing at our region and their advance health care facilities may be the reason of comparatively low incidence of DVT in their population and incidence of DVT might be high in our area. There is no any national database available through which the incidence of DVT can be documented that is why our study will fill the scientific gap present in our area. Knudson et al, [7]
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