CHANGSHA - Doctors from China's Hunan province are reporting a syndrome that might be described as modern medicine meeting The Joy Luck Club. A 40-year-old woman with painful swelling in her left leg consulted doctors and was subsequently diagnosed with "mahjong-related" deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), a dangerous blood clot.

In a letter to the medical journal Lancet, doctors noted that she had spent eight hours sitting motionless the previous night playing the mahjong so intently that all she consumed was "a small amount of soft drink".

She had no prior health problems.

"The mechanisms of mahjong-related DVT could be complicated by stress and sleep deprivation," they wrote. She was hospitalised for two weeks on intravenous blood thinners and aspirin while wearing compression stockings. She recovered, and is on maintenance therapy with warfarin, a blood thinner.

(Today Online)