Vaskulárna medicína 2/2013

Pulmonary embolism in a 16-year old female patient with sticky platelet syndrome – a case report

Despite of the lower incidence of thromboembolism in childhood compared to the adulthood more and more children have suffered from this problem recently. Thrombosis in children is usually multifactorial. Its cause is known in approximately 80% of children nowadays, very often there are at least two thrombophilic risk factors. Hereditary thrombophilia play role in about 10-15% of cases and only in 5% of children the thrombosis is idiopathic. While in younger children the central venous catheter is the most common causing factor of thrombosis, in older children and adolescents new risk factors resulting from the present lifestyle as obesity, smoking or using of oral contraceptive drugs gain the bigger importance. The probability of thrombosis development is several fold higher if there is combination of hereditary thrombophilic states and acquired risk factors (1-2). Authors present here a case-report of a 16-years old girl who developed pulmonary thromboembolism during taking oral contraceptive drugs. The consequent screening of thrombophilia revealed only hereditary thrombophilic state – sticky platelet syndrome.

Keywords: thromboembolism, screening of thrombophilia, sticky platelet syndrome, oral contraceptive drugs.