Introduction

Prostate cancer is the most frequent malignant neoplasm diagnosed in men worldwide. Patients with prostate cancer have higher rates of thrombotic events when compared with other groups of cancer patients; that can be explained because of the presence of multiple risk factors such as age, histopathology, type of therapy, and associated comorbidities. The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors related to development of thrombosis in patients with prostate cancer in a tertiary care center.

Methods

Retrospective cohort study that included patients ≥18yo diagnosed with prostate cancer at our institution between 2014 and 2017. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed including all previously described thrombosis risk factors in cancer patients.

Results

A total of 101 patients were included. Median age was 72 years (52-92). A total of 23 patients (22.8%) presented with a thrombotic event. Regarding baseline characteristics, patients with thrombosis were older (77 vs. 71 years; p=.015), had lower levels of HDL (40.4 vs. 48 mg/dL; p=.033), and a higher prevalence of primary hypertension (65.2% vs.34.6%; p=.009).

In patients with thrombosis, 52.2% (n=12) were venous thrombosis and 47.8% (n=11) were arterial. The most common events were pulmonary thromboembolism (n=7; 58.3%) for venous thrombosis and acute coronary syndromes (n=6; 54.5%) for arterial events.

In univariate analysis risk factors related to the development of thrombosis were: prostration > 3 days (p=.039), immobility (p=.023), central venous catheter (p=.004), congestive heart failure (p=.021), history of TE (p=.021), major surgery (p=.031) and hip fracture (p=.021). Table 1. On multivariate analysis factors that remained statistically significant were: central venous catheter OR 8.8 (CI 95% 2.2-35.7, p=.002), previous thrombosis OR 10.3 (CI 95% 1.5-72.8, p=.020), and hip fracture OR 8.5 (CI 95% 1.2-63.5,p=.037).

Conclusions

In conclusion, our study confirms findings from previous studies regarding factors that significantly predispose cancer patients to thrombosis development. Considering our population age, it is not surprising that risk factors in patients with prostate cancer were mainly related to the presence of other comorbiditiesparticularly cardiovascular and atherothrombotic disease. The main risk factor was history of previous thrombosis, suggesting that closer and prolonged anticoagulation therapy should be consider. Multicenter prospective studies most be urged in our population to asses and validate risk factors, and design prognostic scores that can help on determining which patients could be candidates to early intervention modifying preexisting factors and/or receiving prophylactic dose of anticoagulants.

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Disclosures

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Topics:
prostate cancer, thromboembolism, thrombosis, cancer, central venous catheters, hip fractures, thrombus, venous thrombosis, acute coronary syndromes, anticoagulants

Author notes

*

Asterisk with author names denotes non-ASH members.

© 2018 by The American Society of Hematology
2018
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