South Florida Doctor Dishes On Suspected Bosh Clot
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami Heat's star player Chris Bosh is at South Miami Hospital with his wife Adrienne by his side.
Bosh is not benched but in a treatment bed after checking in Thursday with chest pain, a suspected long clot, or pulmonary embolism.
"Untreated pulmonary clots have a 20 percent chance of death. We don't see that mortality anymore, because now we have therapy," said Dr. Luis Alvarez with the University of Miami Hospital.
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A clot in the lung travels from the leg can be caused by surgery or a leg fracture. Bosh has had neither recently.
The chief cause of clots is prolonged immobilization, mostly among those hospitalized for extended periods and then there's this: "Very prolonged air travel, as in more than four hours, can put people in a condition that is prone to clots."
And the Heat fly a lot.
Over seven days this month, the team flew from Miami to Boston, Boston to Detroit, Detroit to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to San Antonio and San Antonio back to Miami.
A pulmonary embolism can be fatal, if it completely blocks an artery, stopping the flow of blood.
The good news, according to the doctor is, "because we are able to treat patients, mortality is very low. Patients tend to do very well."
The treatment includes blood thinners that keep the clot from growing and allow the body to eventually eliminate it.
Blood thinners usually are given for at least six months and make patients prone to severe bleeding. Assuming Bosh has clots, he can't risk a hard foul on the court so his season is presumably over.