Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles is the latest professional athlete to endure blood clots, joining Victor Wembanyama, Chris Bosh, Damian Lillard and others.
The one-time Super Bowl MVP is expected to miss the rest of the season because of blood clots in his lungs, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Monday. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the health matter.
Hurts was placed on injured reserve Saturday, two days after the team revealed he has a blood clot in his calf. The Eagles and Hurts’ agent, Nicole Lynn, released more information on his condition Monday. They said Hurts has deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli, meaning a blood clot has traveled to the lungs.
The diagnosis brought new attention to the condition, its risks and treatments, while raising questions about why so many athletes have been diagnosed with blood clots in recent years.
Here are some answers:
DVT, or deep vein thrombosis, is the term for a blood clot that forms in a deep vein, usually in the lower legs. Sometimes it can break off and travel into the lungs, lodging in a blood vessel to block blood flow. That’s called a pulmonary embolism and it can be life-threatening.
Any number of things can cause deep vein thrombosis, ranging from immobility and trauma to family history and dehydration. Symptoms include inexplicable swelling and discoloration or pain, or some combination of those factors, and experts say the worry is the clot traveling through the bloodstream, causing a pulmonary embolism or death.
“When you have a DVT in the leg or the arm, there’s a chance that it will break free, and when it breaks free, it can end up lodged in the lung,” Mary Cushman, a hematologist and professor of medicine at the University of Vermont, has said. “And if it’s large enough, that can kill a person.”
Taking blood thinners is the most common course of action. Sometimes surgery is involved or blood thinners for the long term. Hurts’ treatment involves blood thinners, and he will not be allowed to participate in any football activities until he is off them.
Richard Ricciardi, a professor at the George Washington University School of Nursing, said there is no evidence to suggest elite athletes are more predisposed to blood clots than those of comparable ages in the general population.
“I do not believe there are any large-scale studies that compare elite athletes with non-athletes,” Ricciardi said. “Athletes are generally considered low risk for blood clots, but they face a cluster of sport-specific risk factors, so they may have a higher risk than expected for young, fit people.
“High-contact sports theoretically could raise blood clot risk, primarily through collision and trauma-induced blood vessel wall injury,” he added. “But to my knowledge no studies directly quantify how much contact sports increase risk versus noncontact sports.”
The risk for people in their 20s and 30s of developing deep vein thrombosis or a pulmonary embolism is one in 10,000.
One potential reason blood disorders may come to light more often with elite athletes, though, is the amount of medical care they are provided with on a regular basis.
