Unprovoked venous thromboembolism recurrence and arterial embolism revealing lung cancer: a case report

Abstract

The link between venous thromboembolism (VTE) and cancer is well known. VTE could be the initial sign of an occult malignancy. There are more diagnoses of cancer after an unprovoked VTE compared to a provoked VTE, with a reported prevalence between 4.5% and 5.6% over 12 months, within the first 6 months of VTE diagnosis. There are no recommended guidelines and scores yet adopted in clinical practice, but many studies support occult cancer screening in unprovoked VTE patients. We report the case of a patient with a history of unprovoked pulmonary embolism (PE) diagnosed with bronchopulmonary neoplasm in an advanced stage one year after the thromboembolic event. When the cancer was first diagnosed, the patient’s condition was already serious, being too late for the adoption of measures meant to decrease the risk of mortality and increase the duration of survival. We wanted to emphasize the importance of occult cancer screening in patients with unprovoked VTE and the fact that early cancer diagnosis reduces the risk of cancer progression, decreasing mortality and morbidity related to it.