Elsevier

The American Journal of Medicine

Volume 126, Issue 9, September 2013, Pages 832.e13-832.e21
The American Journal of Medicine

AJM online
Clinical research study
Incidence of and Mortality from Venous Thromboembolism in a Real-world Population: The Q-VTE Study Cohort

Material from this manuscript was presented at the 54th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia on December 8, 2012.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.02.024Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

The public health burden of venous thromboembolism, which includes deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, is not fully known, and contemporary incidence and mortality estimates are needed. We determined the incidence and case fatality of venous thromboembolism in a general population.

Methods

Using the administrative health care databases of the Canadian province of Québec, we identified all incident cases of deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism between 2000 and 2009 and classified them as definite or probable venous thromboembolism. We formed 2 patient cohorts, one with definite cases and the other including cases with definite or probable venous thromboembolism that were followed until December 31, 2009.

Results

We identified 67,354 definite and 35,123 probable cases of venous thromboembolism. The age- and sex-adjusted incidence rates of definite or probable venous thromboembolism, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism were 1.22 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.22-1.23), 0.78 (95% CI, 0.77-0.79), and 0.45 (95% CI, 0.44-0.45) per 1000 person-years, respectively, while for definite venous thromboembolism it was 0.90 (95% CI, 0.89-0.90) per 1000 person-years. The 30-day and 1-year case-fatality rates after definite or probable venous thromboembolism were 10.6% (95% CI, 10.4-10.8) and 23.0% (95% CI, 22.8-23.3), respectively, and were slightly higher among definite cases. The 1-year survival rate was 0.47 (95% CI, 0.46-0.48) for cases with definite or probable venous thromboembolism and cancer, 0.93 (95% CI, 0.93-0.94) for cases with unprovoked venous thromboembolism, and 0.84 (95% CI, 0.83-0.84) for cases with venous thromboembolism secondary to a major risk factor. Similar survival rates were seen for cases with definite venous thromboembolism.

Conclusion

The risk of venous thromboembolism in the general population remains high, and mortality, especially in cancer patients with venous thromboembolism, is substantial.

Section snippets

Study Design

This retrospective study used the linked administrative health care databases of the province of Québec, Canada to identify a cohort of Québec residents with an incident event of venous thromboembolism from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009.

Data Sources

Study data were obtained from the linked databases of the Maintenance et exploitation des données pour l'étude de la clientèle hospitalière (MED-ÉCHO) and the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ). MED-ÉCHO contains information on all Québec

Results

From the 245,452 patients in Québec between 2000 and 2009 with at least one venous thromboembolism diagnosis in RAMQ or MED-ÉCHO, we identified 67,354 cases with definite venous thromboembolism, and an additional 35,123 cases with probable venous thromboembolism. Figures 1 and 2 describe the identification of the definite and any venous thromboembolism cohorts, respectively. Table 1 shows baseline patient characteristics. In the any venous thromboembolism cohort, 56% of patients were women, 61%

Discussion

We found that the age- and sex-adjusted incidence rate of venous thromboembolism was 1.22 per 1000 person-years, and when a more robust definition of venous thromboembolism was used, the rate was 0.90 per 1000 person-years. These estimates compare with rates of venous thromboembolism from older population studies.3, 11, 12, 13 Similar to previous studies,1, 11 we did not observe a difference in the incidence of venous thromboembolism among men and women when adjusting for age. This confirms

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    Funding: An infrastructure grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Ottawa, ON, Canada and an unrestricted grant from Bayer Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany.

    Conflict of Interest: None.

    Authorship: All authors had full access to all the data in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors had a role in writing and revising the manuscript.

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