Leg Scanning and Hip Surgery-Reply

Abstract

In Reply.— As Dr Sautter states, others apparently have shared our difficulties in understanding his reported data. We assume their interpretations, like ours, followed careful reading of his article. Even on rereading it now, we have difficulties, so we appreciate his clarifying comments as to what he actually found. We do, however, stand by our statement that one must be cautious in assessing any study in which leg blind spot is not specified, because this could lead automatically to false-negatives. There are examples in the literature of such a sequence. As to lysis of venous thrombi between the time of the scan and the phlebogram, we note that Dr Sautter's patients averaged four days between procedures. Presumably, then, some patients were studied substantially beyond four days. Dr Sautter may not think venous thrombus resolution is reasonable during a period of four-plus days. However, it can occur. We do agree that