Intensive care patients are at high risk to develop deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary
embolism. Despite anticoagulation with heparin 7% of ICU patients suffer from this serious
complication. Optimal regimens for prevention of VTE have been established in medical
patients only and are not known for ICU patients.
It was therefore the aim of this study to compare the bioavailability of a low molecular
weight heparin in ICU patients and in medical patients. Furthermore, we looked wether a 50%
dose increase resulted in better bioavailability of this drug.