Follow-up, recurrent VTE and bleeding Patients will be followed-up for 33 months to document the incidence of symptomatic recurrent thromboembolism. Follow-up visits will be scheduled in all patients at 3, 9, 15, 21, and 33 months after randomization. Recurrent thromboembolism will be diagnosed by compression ultrasound, ventilation/perfusion scanning, or helical tomography as appropriate. If recurrent thrombosis is suspected in a previously unaffected leg, the sole diagnostic criterion will be incompressibility of a proximal vein. Ultrasound criteria for recurrent ipsilateral thrombosis will be incompressibility of a proximal vein segment initially free from thrombi and/or incompressibility of a proximal vein that has completely recanalized. Nonfatal pulmonary embolism will be defined by a (sub)segmental ventilation-perfusion mismatch on lung scanning or an intraluminal filling defect on spiral computed tomography of the chest. Fatal pulmonary embolism will be diagnosed if it is confirmed at autopsy, if it is anteceded in the immediate period before death by objectively confirmed pulmonary embolism or venous thrombosis, or if it is a sudden death that cannot be explained by a disease or condition other than pulmonary embolism.