From the authors:
We appreciate the suggestion by D.P. Potaczek and A. Undas that the overall allergic inflammation burden might have increased the risk of venous thromboembolism in our patients. Therefore, we performed a post hoc analysis in subgroups, after stratification for atopic and non-atopic asthma. But, again, we did not find any difference between the groups (table 1).
Probably best to put table between these two paragraphs given the small amount of text? Unless after running togther with ERJ-00009-2013 it can be conveniently placed at a column head/foot.
With respect to the dissociation between the risk of deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, we very much agree with D.P. Potaczek and A. Undas that this suggests that the activation of haemostasis in our population is not due to prolonged immobilisation and hospitalisations, but is the result of inflammation in the airways per se. Of course, our findings have to be replicated in larger cohorts and more studies are needed to disentangle the underlying mechanisms, in particular with respect to asthma severity, type of airway inflammation and the use of corticosteroids.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside the online version of this article at www.erj.ersjournals.com
- Received February 4, 2013.
- Accepted February 11, 2013.
- ©ERS 2013