Report on Screening for Deep Vein Thrombosis of East Japan Great Earthquake Evacuees at Shelter of Yamagata Prefecture

• Published in: Jōmyakugaku : Nihon Jōmyaku Gakkai kikanshi = The Japanese journal of phlebology Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 7 - 11
• Main Authors: Hirooka, Shigeki, Orita, Hiroyuki, Sotoda, Youkou
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japanese Society of Phlebology 25.02.2012
• Subjects: Complex type disaster; Deep vein thrombosis; East Japan Great Earthquake; Shelter of neighbor prefecture
• ISSN: 0915-7395; 2186-5523; 2186-5523
• DOI: 10.7134/phlebol.23.7

On March 11 at 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred near the northeastern coast of Japan, creating extremely destructive tsunami waves with hit Japan just minutes after the earthquake. The earthquake and tsunami have caused extensive and severe damage in East Japan. The explosion accident occurred at the Fukushima first nuclear power plant in the next day, a large number of evacuees have taken refuge in Yamagata prefecture. We carried out deep vein thrombosis screening of evacuees at the Ochiai sports center in Yamagata City on 9 and 10 days after the earthquake. Deep vein thrombosis was detected by 14 of 123 (male 24, female 99) people (11.4%). Mean age of thrombus positive people are 75.4±12.8 and thrombus negative people are 59.0±13.6. Five people have gait disturbance and 27 people experienced overnight sleeping in the car. We conducted life style guidance for the prevention of deep vein thrombosis for the evacuees and distributed elastic stockings to the some of the evacuees.