Hematocrit and incidence of venous thromboembolism

Abstract Background Patients with polycythemia vera with high hematocrit have increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Objective To determine whether high hematocrit in the general population is also associated with elevated VTE risk. Methods The prospective Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study performed a complete blood count in 13 891 adults aged 45 to 64 in 1987 to 1989. We identified incident hospitalized VTEs through 2015 and performed proportional hazards regression analyses using race‐sex–specific categorization of hematocrit percentiles (ie,