The study was designed to describe the hospital incidences and annual hospitalization rates for venous thromboembolic disease by age and sex in France and the United States on the closest possible methodological bases.

French statistics are from the PMSI MCO (Programme de médicalisation des système d'information de médecine, chirurgie et obstétrique (French national hospital discharge register)) national database. These are compiled for each calendar year by collating résumé de sortie anonymisé (RSA, anonymous discharge summary) files forwarded and validated by health establishments with admissions in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and odontology. They are compared to the data issued from the US National Hospital Discharge Survey which is equivalent to the PMSI in France and uses the International Classification of Diseases-9 for encoding the data. These data were published in the Morbidity, Mortality Weekly Report of the Centre for Disease Control.

In the US, 547,996 hospital stays involve venous thromboembolic diseases, 348,558 deep venous thrombosis (DVT), and 277,549 pulmonary embolism (PE). Of these 78,511, or 14%, include a diagnosis of both DVT and PE. The hospital incidence of venous thromboembolic disease is 1.4%, DVT 0.9%, and PE 0.7%. In France, of the 26,658,228 annual hospital stays, 273,931 include venous thromboembolic disease, 179,286 DVT, and 139,345 PE while 44,700, i.e. 16.3%, include both DVT and PE. The hospital incidence of venous thromboembolic disease is thus 1.0%, DVT 0.6%, and PE 0.5%. The overall annual hospitalization rates for venous thromboembolic disease, DVT, and PE are respectively 274, 179, and 139 per 100,000 inhabitants in France and 239, 146, and 121 per 100,000 inhabitants in the US.

Venous thromboembolic diseases occur in France and the US in 1% of all hospital stays and are responsible for an annual hospitalization rate that exceeds 200 per 100,000. The scale of these annual incidences should prompt us to question the quality of prevention put in place and/or its efficacy.