Abstract
Introduction Chronic venous insufficiency can be a disabling complication following otherwise successful arthroplasty. The objectives of this study were 1) To evaluate correlation between the CIVIQ (questionnaire) score and the clinical score in a cohort of patients with lower limb arthroplasty. 2) To evaluate if CIVIQ score can predict post-phlebitic syndrome.
Methods A cohort of 44 patients at least three years following primary lower limb arthroplasty was selected. The control group included 22 patients who did not have DVT. The study group included 22 age matched patients who had DVT following the index procedure. CIVIQ score and clinical score was obtained. Statistical analysis included correlations, linear regression analysis and independent sample t-test.
Results The CIVIQ and clinical scores showed significant correlations, with r=0.66 (p 0.01). The linear regression yielded the formula; CIVIQ score equals 32 plus 1.7 (clinical score) with power of 0.9. There was statistically significant difference in the CIVIQ score in the study and control groups (p 0.013, power 0.9).
Conclusions CIVIQ is an effective tool to predict post-phlebitic syndrome in patients with arthroplasty. This is especially useful as it is self administered and hence can be done as a postal or telephone survey.
The abstracts were prepared by Mr Jerzy Sikorski. Correspondence should be addressed to him at the Australian Orthopaedic Association, Ground Floor, William Bland Centre, 229 Macquarie Street, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia.
None of the authors have received any payment or consideration from any source for the conduct of this study.
