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What is the most common cause of bilateral swollen legs in an elderly patient?
Heart failure/fluid overload.
How does one usually treat heart failure/fluid overload acutely?
Diuresis (frusemide) and vasodilators (morphine/frusemide).
What happens if a patient with IVC thrombosis is treated in this way?
He will become hypovolaemic/shocked.
IVC filter.
Dilated non-enhanced IVC/iliac veins below the filter. This could be flow phenomenon but the collapse of the IVC above the filter is compelling.
Signs of hypovolaemia - completely collapsed IVC above the filter and underfilled right atrium/ventricle. The same volume of blood flows through the right ventricle as the left ventricle and the lumen of these two cardiac chambers is usually very similar.