Venous thromboembolism in cancer patients referred to the American University of Beirut-Medical Center secondary to deep vein thrombosis; occurrence and risk factors.

BACKGROUND/
OBJECTIVES: Cancer is a very important risk factor for the development of thromboembolic disorders. We conducted a retrospective study, in order to examine the rate of Deep vein thrombosis occurrence in cancer patients, as well as the effects of risk factors for DVT in cancer patients affected with DVT.
METHODS: 148 patients were enrolled in this study. Several risk factors for DVT were retrospectively examined with the main emphasis being age, gender, obesity, previous history of past thromboembolic phenomena and metastatic disease.
RESULTS: 55.5% of the study group was older than 60 years of age. Gender did not appear to be a significant risk factor. As for obesity, only 23% of our patients were defined as obese. An examination of previous history of thromboembolic conditions revealed that 16.8% had previous history of DVT, 1.3% developed a PE prior to presentation and 3.4% were positive for both DVT and PE. As for metastasis, 33.7% of our study population exhibited metastatic cancer upon their presentation. One interesting finding was that only 13 patients out of the 148 had been on DVT-prophylaxis prior to their admission.
CONCLUSION: Cancer is an important risk factor for the development of thromboembolic phenomena, yet in most parts of the world, prophylaxis is discerned mostly through clinical judgement or local guidelines. With this in mind, and the additive effects of other risk factors, stricter medical practices and well-defined regimens should be set forth to protect cancer patients from these conditions.