Causes of death after first time venous thromboembolism

Causes of death after first time community-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) diagnosed in unselected patients at the emergency department (ED) was investigated.

The study consists of all patients > 18 years of age who had a visit for any medical reason to any of 5 different ED in Stockholm County, Sweden from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2017. We have identified all patients with a first registered incident VTE; deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and/or pulmonary embolism (PE) during the study period. Cox regression models were used to estimate hazards ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause mortality and cause-specific death in patients with DVT or PE using all other patients as the reference group.

In total, 359,884 patients had an ED visit during the study period of whom about 2.1% were diagnosed with VTE (DVT = 4,384, PE = 3,212). The patients with VTE were older compared to the control group. During a mean follow up of 2.1 years, 1567 (21%) and 23,741(6.7%) patients died within the VTE and reference group, respectively. The adjusted risk of all-cause mortality was nearly double in patients with DVT (HR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.5–1.8) and more than 3-fold in patients with PE (HR 3.4; 95% CI, 3.1–3.6). While the risk of cancer related death was nearly 3-fold in patient with DVT (HR 2.7; 95% CI, 2.4–3.1), and 5-fold in PE (HR 5.4; 95% CI, 4.9-6.0 respectively). The diagnosis of PE during the ED visit was associated with a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular death (HR 2.2; 95% CI, 1.9–2.6).

Patients with VTE have an elevated risk of all-cause mortality, including cardiovascular death.