Bleeding and thrombosis outcomes in patients with acute leukemia.

Abstract

e19501 Background: Management of acute leukemia is often complicated by acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) and bleeding. However, it is unknown which risk factors contribute to these VTE and bleeding events, how they impact survival, or whether they warrant VTE prophylaxis. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital System. The study included patients aged 18 or older with acute leukemia who received induction chemotherapy between January 2000 and December 2011. Bleeding was defined as clinically significant non-major bleeding and major bleeding per the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis guidelines. VTE was defined as pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis of the upper or lower extremities, or visceral vein thrombosis. Results: Of the 250 patients with acute leukemia, 65 had VTE, 60 had bleeding, and 152 had no significant VTE or bleeding. There were 27 patients with both VTE and bleeding. There were no significant differences in demographics or disease types between these three groups. There was a total of 77 VTE events and 72 bleeding events. We performed a logistic regression analysis in a mixed model to identify risk factors for VTE and bleeding, considering leukemia type, presence of infection, chemotherapy, number of comorbidities, VTE prophylaxis, and transplant as covariates. Presence of infection and number of comorbidities were significantly associated with VTE (p = 0.0094 and 0.0009, respectively). We did not find any significant risk factor associated with bleeding. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed a non-significant difference in survival between the non-VTE, non-bleed group and the VTE group (Logrank test, p = 0.52). In contrast, survival in the non-VTE, non-bleed group was significantly higher than the bleed group (Logrank test, p = 0.0006). The table demonstrates higher two-year survival in the non-VTE, non-bleed group (68.7%) compared to the VTE and bleed groups (54.4% and 30.3%, respectively). Conclusions: Acute leukemia patients without VTE or bleeding had significantly higher duration of survival than patients with bleeding. Patients with acute leukemia and presence of infection or multiple comorbidities may warrant greater consideration of VTE prophylaxis. [Table: see text]