Clinical course of pulmonary embolism patients treated with DOACs: comparing prognosis, recurrent thromboembolism, and major bleeding between patients with and without cancer

Abstract

Abstract Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third frequent acute cardiovascular syndrome in the Europe and Japan. Since direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are widely used now, the morbidity and mortality of pulmonary embolism (PE) patients especially associated with cancer needs to be re-evaluated. Purpose We evaluated the clinical course of patients with PE mainly treated with DOACs. Methods This retrospective observational study was conducted in a single center. The data were collected from the medical record of consecutive patients who received inpatient treatment of PE. In this study, we have compared PE patients with cancer (cancer PE) to those without cancer (non-cancer PE) and evaluated the mortality, recurrent of VTE and major bleedings. Results In total, 140 patients were enrolled: 94 patients were cancer-related, and 46 patients were without cancer (Table). The type of the tumor in cancer PE patients were as follows: gastric 8 (9%), esophageal 5 (5%), pancreatic 12 (13%), lung 14 (15%), lymphoma 2 (2%), gynecologic 17 (18%), renal 2 (2%), bile duct 8 (9%), colon 12 (13%), and others 17 (18%). Kaplan-Meier curve showed that the cumulative all-cause mortality was significantly higher in the cancer PE group (35/94 (37%) vs. 2/46 (4%), P<0.001 (log rank), HR 10.3 [95% CI:2.5–43.3]). The cumulative incidence of recurrent VTE was significantly higher in the cancer PE group (7/94 (7%) vs. 0/46, P=0.03 (log rank)). There was no significant difference in the cumulative incidence of major bleeding between the cancer PE group and the non-cancer PE group (8/94 (9%) vs. 5/46 (11%)). Conclusions The risk of recurrent VTE was still higher in cancer PE patients compared to non-cancer PE patients, although DOACs were used. Meanwhile the incidence of major bleeding was comparable in both groups, the risk of bleeding might be acceptable with using DOACs especially in cancer PE patients. Figure 1 Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None