Abstract

Thromboembolic disease (TED) is frequent, and, thromboembolic events are the second cause of death in active cancer patients Today we have knowledge of a lot of risk and predictor factors of thrombosis in cancer, although some mechanisms underlying this increased thromboembolic risk, still remains unclear. Knowing that cancer is today curable, we want to remark that not only old people but also young should be investigated about their personal burden of thromboembolic disease to improve prognosis, and at the same time remark the need to establish different therapeutic strategies in each stage of the disease to prevent or treat TED. We present the case of a young 28 old, female, with breast nodule and axillaries lymphadenopathies, highly suspicious of breast cancer. She has an acute Inferior Vena Cava Thrombosis in her Scan Tomography with a 40% occlusion clinically asymptomatic. Personal history: 2008 splenectomy by a refractory autoimmune hemolytic anemia Directed Coombs Positive (DC) to corticosteroids, 2010 hypothyroidism, 2011 anti lupus antibodies(LA) during traditional pre surgical coagulation test, that persist along time. Family history positive for breast cancer, mother and grandmother and negative for thromboembolic disease In this scenario we decide to put her in low molecular weight heparin 1mg/kg bid a day until we have the oncology diagnosis and then re evaluate our therapeutic anticoagulant decision. After breast cancer diagnosis with the axillaries biopsy she continued with LMWH at full doses to perform the surgery and complete treatment. The diagnosis after surgery was high grade intraductal carcinoma N1 Pos of 21. She performs chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and taxol and then radiotherapy. She has been controlled with doppler ultrasonography every three months, at month six shows vena cava recanalization. When she finished radiotherapy we stop HBPM one day and reevaluated for LA that persist positive. At this time we decided to change treatment to antivitamin K until today. The patient, two years later continues in cancer remission with LA and DC positive without hemolytic symptoms and also without new thromboembolic events. The careful evaluation of the personal risk factors for thromboembolic disease in young and old patients with active cancer not only are good to prevent but also probably make us more aggressive at the time to treat in the first stage of cancer and the TED.

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