C-56 | Marijuana Use Associated With Increased Risk of Deep Venous Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism: A Nationwide Study

Abstract

Lower extremity venous disease can be a debilitating disease with poor quality of life and can lead to complications including pulmonary embolism (PE) that confer an increased risk of mortality. The impact of active marijuana use on outcomes with peripheral venous disease including deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and PE has not been well studied and remains rarely reported. De-identified patient data from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2016-2019 were queried. Inclusion criteria included diagnosis of marijuana use. Patients were further stratified with diagnoses of DVT and PE. Data was analyzed using SPSS software in a binary logistic regression model, a p value <0.001 was considered statistically significant, and samples were standardized for comparison using predicted probabilities. Of the 30m+ patients in the NIS from 2016 to 2019, there were 623,768 patients diagnosed as marijuana users. Of these patients, 409 (0.07%) were diagnosed with a DVT and 3042 (0.49%) were diagnosed with a PE. Marijuana users were at more than double the risk of being diagnosed with a DVT and PE as compared to non marijuana users (OR = 2.263, 2.504, respectively; p<0.001). A total of 979 marijuana users died during hospitalization, but were at no increased risk of mortality when diagnosed with DVT or PE. Marijuana users had an average age of 37.4 years, even distribution across genders, were more likely to be white and more likely to be elective admissions (p<0.001). Marijuana use has been linked to alterations in platelet function and coagulation cascade. Our data reveals that marijuana users have a higher prevalence of DVT and PE than the general population. They were at no increased risk of mortality which may be attributed to patients being younger on average. Further studies need to be conducted to determine whether these patients undergo more interventions and suffer from subsequent complications.