Risk factors for neonatal thrombosis

Abstract

We thank Christoph Male's Comment 1 Male C Understanding risk factors for neonatal thrombosis. Lancet Haematol. 2022; 9: e171-e172 Google Scholar in The Lancet Haematology for adding perspective to the limitations of our study. 2 Bhat R Kwon S Zaniletti I Murthy K Liem RI Risk factors associated with venous and arterial neonatal thrombosis in the intensive care unit: a multicentre case-control study. Lancet Haematol. 2022; 9: e200-e207 Google Scholar In his Comment, Male points out that previous publications, including our study, 2 Bhat R Kwon S Zaniletti I Murthy K Liem RI Risk factors associated with venous and arterial neonatal thrombosis in the intensive care unit: a multicentre case-control study. Lancet Haematol. 2022; 9: e200-e207 Google Scholar , 3 Easterlin MC Li Y Yieh L et al. Predictors of venous thromboembolism among infants in children's hospitals in the United States: a retrospective Pediatric Health Information Study. J Perinatol. 2022; 42: 103-109 Google Scholar , 4 El-Naggar W Yoon EW McMillan D et al. Epidemiology of thrombosis in Canadian neonatal intensive care units. J Perinatol. 2020; 40: 1083-1090 Google Scholar reported an order of magnitude difference in the incidence rate of neonatal thrombosis compared with the analysis by Robinson and colleagues. 5 Robinson V Achey MA Nag UP et al. Thrombosis in infants in the neonatal intensive care unit: analysis of a large national database. J Thromb Haemost. 2021; 19: 400-407 Google Scholar We think this difference might be due not only to differences in study populations and identification strategies, as Male suggests, but also to reduced thrombosis awareness and underestimation of risk in clinical practice during the study period covered by Robinson and colleagues’ analysis (1997–2015), which preceded the study period covered by other publications, including ours (2010–16).