Venous Thromboembolism in Children – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

Venous Thromboembolism in Children in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Two peaks
2. Commonest culprit
3. Why induction clots
4. Breathless in relapse
5. Swollen calf
6. Pleuritic pain on the pill
7. Dry and drowsy
8. Starting treatment
9. Timing the sample
10. How long
11. The PICC question
12. No more needles
13. Behind the ear
14. Bleeding on treatment
15. Back on the pill?
16. No obvious trigger
17. A year later
18. Before discharge

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Early school age and late adolescence, Extreme prematurity, born at 27 weeks, Lower hepatic production of antithrombin, Pleural effusion from the very low albumin, Accept the normal result and treat it as a bruise, CT pulmonary angiography, An electroencephalogram within a day, Oral aspirin at an antiplatelet dose, Increase the dose as planned, then recheck it later, Stop it now, since the line is out, After three to five days of anticoagulation, Stop treatment early, as the clot was provoked, Nothing further, as antibiotics clear the clot, Stop it and give protamine for partial reversal.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Clots in children come at the two ends: the neonatal unit and the teenage years.
• In a child with a clot, look for the line first.
• Asparaginase starves the liver of the proteins that keep blood fluid.
• A nephrotic child with sudden pleuritic pain and a clear film has an embolus until shown otherwise.
• In a child, the D-dimer cannot clear a swollen leg: the scan decides.
• Teenager, oestrogen, a cast and sudden pleuritic pain: image the pulmonary arteries.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all Haematology case decks · pediatric reference values.