Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common cause of mortality in cancer patients. This paper looks into prevalent characteristic of breast cancer in association with VTE, if any.
Hospital patient database were gathered from 2010-2015 with Venous Dupplex Scan or Computed Tomographic Pulmonary Angiography. Each result were reviewed for final conclusion bearing acute pulmonary embolism or acute thrombosis. Only the first VTE event after the diagnosis of cancer was considered.
There were 10,380 CTPA/Venous duplex scan performed for the year 2010-2015, where 916 (8.8%) had positive venous thromboembolism. Of the patients who had positive for venous thromboembolism, 208 (2%) had malignancy. Among all the malignancy-associated venous, majority 17.9% (n = 37) had breast cancer. Mean age for Breast cancer patients who had positive VTE was 60.9(46-84) with majority 64.8% having normal BMI. Most had VTE of lower extremities 75.67%, presented with swelling of extremities 48.6%. Twenty-one patients (57.7%) had VTE within one year of cancer diagnosis, 8(21.6%) had VTE more than two years from cancer diagnosis. Sixteen (43.2%) were alive for more than two years from VTE diagnosis, 14 (37.8%) died within 3 months to one years from VTE diagnosis. During the time of VTE diagnosis, active cancer management were chemotherapy 17 (45.9%), hormonal therapy 12 (32.4%), surgery 4(10.8%), while 4(10.8%) had VTE as the presenting symptom of cancer diagnosis. Among those receiving chemotherapy, 11(64.7%) had VTE during chemotherapy days while 35% had VTE with one month after completion of chemotherapy. Those with hormonal therapy 83.3% had aromatase inhibitor, while only 5.4% received tamoxifen.
Breast cancer patients with VTE have normal BMI, presenting as swelling of the lower extremity. VTE presented within one year of cancer diagnosis and were mostly alive for more than two years. Active cancer management during VTE diagnosis was mostly during chemotherapy and hormonal with aromatase inhibitor.
The authors.
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All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.