White clot syndrome: a rare complication of heparin therapy.

A case of white clot syndrome in a 61-year-old man is reported. The patient suffered simultaneous aortic and vena caval thromboses while receiving heparin therapy for pulmonary embolism. Thrombocytopenia was noted. Thrombectomies successfully relieved the thromboses. Apart from heparin, no factors predisposing to aortic thrombosis were evident, and the patient remained well in the succeeding 7 years since. A brief review of the literature on the white clot syndrome suggests that the entity remains poorly defined, regarding both the mechanism of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and its relation to thrombosis.