Computerized Registry of Patients With Venous Thromboembolism (RIETE)

Overview

The Computerized Registry of Patients with Venous Thromboembolism (RIETE) is a multidisciplinary Project initiated in march 2001 and consisting in obtaining an extensive data registry of consecutive patients with venous thromboembolism. The main objective is to provide information on the Internet to help physicians to improve their knowledge on the natural history of thromboembolic disease, particularly in those subgroups of patients who are usually not recruited in randomized clinical trials (pregnant women, elderly patients, disseminated cancer, severe renal insufficiency, patients with contraindications to anticoagulation therapy, extreme body weight, etc), with the purpose of decreasing mortality, frequency of thromboembolic recurrences as well as bleeding complications and arterial events. As an additional objective RIETE is also aimed to create predictive scores that help physicians to better identify patients with high risk of presenting some of these complications. The primary parameters recorded by the registry comprise details of each patient's clinical status, including any coexisting or underlying conditions, and the type, dose, duration and outcome (during the first 3 months of therapy) of antithrombotic treatment. Study endpoints are clinically recognized (and objectively confirmed) recurrences of VTE, major and minor bleeding complications, and death.

The RIETE Registry pretends the improvement of care of patients with thromboembolic disease. Very often the investigators pose serious doubts on how to manage a specific patient. Sometimes because it is a patient with thrombocytopenia, a pregnant woman, a patient with a recent cerebral bleeding or cerebral metastasis, a patient with gastroduodenal ulcer or hepatic cirrhosis. There is no clinical evidence about how the investigators should manage these patients and the investigators have to individualize its management. The bibliography available is not of much help. Only if the investigators have a database with a sufficient number of cases, they may be able to make evidence based decisions. This database on the Internet will allow the investigators to consult and obtain an immediate response when taking care of a patient who needs an individualized management. After introducing the patient the investigators will automatically obtain the data of all patients with similar clinical profiles. And this will help the investigators to identify high-risk patients and thus facilitate them preventing possible future complications.