Catheter and Non-Catheter-Related Venous Thromboembolism in Cancer Patients: Survival, Anticoagulation Efficacy, and Safety.

Purpose: To investigate the differences in survival after venous thromboembolism (VTE) and anticoagulation efficacy and safety between catheter (CRVTE) and non-catheter-related VTE (NCRVTE) in cancer patients.
Methods: A retrospective research was conducted, and consecutive cancer (digestive, respiratory, genitourinary, blood and lymphatic, and the other cancers) patients with VTE were enrolled. The anticoagulation therapies included low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH), warfarin, new type of direct oral anticoagulants (NDOACs), LMWH combined with warfarin, and LMWH combined with NDOACs. Data were collected from the electronic medical record database of our hospital and were analyzed accordingly by Kruskal-Wallis H Test, Chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, Logistic regressions, Kaplan-Meier analysis, and Cox regressions.
Results: 263 patients were included, median age in years (interquartile range) was 64(56-71) and 60.5% were male. VTE recurrence rate was 16.7% in CRVTE group which was significantly lower than 34.8% in NCRVTE group ( P  = .032). Heart diseases were independently associated with VTE recurrence ( P  = .025). Kaplan-Meier survival estimates at 1, 2, and 3 years for CRVTE group were 62.5%, 60.0%, and 47.5%, respectively, compared with 47.9% ( P  = .130), 38.7% ( P  = .028), and 30.1% ( P  = .046), respectively, for NCRVTE group. Cox regression showed surgery ( P  = .003), anticoagulation therapy types ( P  = .009), VTE types ( P  = .006) and cancer types ( P  = .039) were independent prognostic factors for 3-year survival after VTE. Nonmajor and major bleeding were not significantly different ( P  = .417). Anticoagulation therapy types were independently associated with the bleeding events ( P  = .030).
Conclusions: Cancer patients with CRVTE potentially have a better anticoagulation efficacy and survival compared to NCRVTE, and the anticoagulation safety seems no significant difference.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.