The Philadelphia Eagles announced Thursday that Jalen Hurts will not play Sunday against the Carolina Panthers due to a “superficial blood clot” in his calf.
What is a superficial blood clot and what does it mean for Hurts for the rest of this season and beyond?
We spoke with Dr. Dinesh Dhanaraj, attending orthopedic surgeon at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Langhorne, who gave us some insight into this type of injury and what we can expect in the future. A note before we begin…
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and guest authors and do not reflect any official policy or position of any NFL team or team sports physicians.
Hurts said he was “stuck up” during the Eagles’ Week 4 loss to the Rams. In case you don’t know what “stuck up” means, another player’s cleat dug into Hurts’ calf at one point during the game.
Before Dr. Dhanaraj even knew Hurts had been tackled, he said of superficial blood clots: “Those can come from a severe contusion.” » After reporting to Dr. Dhanaraj on the Eagles’ statement, he elaborated.
“So this superficial thrombophleoblitis, or blood clot, may be coming from exactly the fact that it was split. There could be bleeding into a smaller vein and that would form a clot, as it’s supposed to do. These are not as dangerous, because they are superficial and can resolve and resolve. Deep vein thrombosis, “DVT,” is the one that is dangerous because it goes all the way to the heart and can cause lung disease. embolism.
“That’s why superficial ones aren’t dangerous, but if they start to move or grow, they can pose a problem.
“So, hypothetically, I guess they keep him away so he doesn’t get hurt, doesn’t move any further. Sometimes blood thinners are used to treat these issues. And it’s hard to say for how long, the superficials, to break them up, they just recommend warm compresses and basically gentle supportive care, trying to avoid major blows to the area or significant activity. But usually it’s just self-limiting.
“It’s probably going to happen week by week. They’ll have to check that blood clot with another ultrasound to see if it’s moving, to see if it’s getting better. If it’s not moving and it’s getting better, it’s starting to stabilize and resolve, it can probably play. But if it gets bigger or moves, then you start to worry that it’s going to go into the deep veins rather than the superficial veins, and eventually cause deep vein thrombosis. Then you can have big problems with it if it is thrown into the heart, it blocks the lungs, this is called a pulmonary embolism, which can be life threatening.
“I’m not a vascular surgeon. That’s more in their specific field. But what I know in general is that if that clot starts to get better, if it goes away, it resolves or if it stabilizes a lot – like it doesn’t move or it doesn’t get bigger – then hypothetically he can play, because he was playing on it and so they determined that he could play safely. It’s a judgment call. But it’s what we should see is that the clot itself does not get worse and does not continue to migrate.
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