The long battle that tennis star Serena Williams has before she can return to the court may be accompanied by a rather unremarkable type of medical device that’s as simple as a stocking.
In fact, it is a stocking. Doctors prescribe compression hose and its more complex cousins for patients at high risk for blood clots, or deep vein thrombosis. The devices are designed to enhance the flow of blood in leg veins.
The devices may be simple, but the DVT suffered by Williams, 29, could have ended her career or worse. The tennis star was stricken with a clot called a pulmonary embolism in her one of the blood vessels in her lung. It’s a dangerous condition that kills 100,000 people a year in the U.S., according to the Dept. of Health & Human Services. A piece of the thrombosis in Williams’ leg broke off and traveled through her veins, into her heart and out into her lungs, where it eventually got stuck and clogged a pulmonary artery.
Like many Americans, Williams was at high risk for DVT because she had recently undergone two surgeries for a foot injury suffered while celebrating her Wimbledon victory, according to news reports.
Along with the surgeries, Williams also had several other risk factors going against her, said Covidien plc (NYSE:COV) vascular therapies chief medical officer Dr. Stephen Mascioli. She was in a cast and flying back and forth between her home in Los Angeles and New York City, according to the reports.
And because blood thinners can prevent the healing of surgical wounds, physicians are reluctant to use blood thinners, Mascioli said. That means a sophisticated version of the compression sleeve that delivers a series of squeezes to the leg might have helped Williams while she was immobilized — a key contributor to thrombosis — in hospital care or worn a compression stocking while she was in flight. The mechanical compression devices, which he said "enhance the flow of blood back to the heart" via a rhythmic constriction of the veins, are relatively safe and don’t have the same hematoma risks as blood thinners. Williams also suffered a hematoma after going on the drugs.
"Instead of allowing the vein to expand and get larger than it should, it will keep the size normal and compress it on a cyclic basis," Mascioli explained.
Williams, a 13-time Grand Slam champion, still has clots in her lungs, she said yesterday on NBC’s "Today" show, but hopes to return to tennis this summer.