Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) In Hospitalized Patients: What Proportion Is Attributable to Malignancy?

VTE is a public health burden in hospitalized patients, affecting the length of hospital stay and overall cost of care. Recent studies suggest increasing incidence of VTE among cancer patients, but contemporary data regarding proportion of VTE attributable to cancer and non-cancer populations are lacking.

Hospital-acquired VTE is a reportable event to New York State and we studied all reported VTE events among patients hospitalized at the University of Rochester Medical Center from January 2003 through April 2009. We utilized electronic medical records to identify additional information including demographics and diagnosis of malignancy.

We identified 2031 patients with 2185 documented VTE events during the study period. Of these, 1102 (54.3%) were men and 929 (45.7%) were women. VTE events included deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (N=1428, 65 %), pulmonary embolism (PE) (N=757, 34.6%), and concurrent DVT and PE (N=153, 7 %). Of the 2031 hospitalized patients with VTE, 492 (24.2%) had a concurrent diagnosis of cancer and 1539 (75.8%) did not. Of 492 cancer-related VTE, 167 (34%) were associated with hematologic malignancies, and 324 (66%) with solid tumors. The proportion of cancer-associated VTE varied by year, ranging from 21% to 31%.

Approximately one-fourth of all VTE in hospitalized patients occurred in patients with cancer, including a substantial proportion with hematologic malignancy. Public health efforts to reduce hospital-associated VTE should focus on improving compliance with thromboprophylaxis for this population.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.