Venous thromboembolism risk high in prostate cancer

Men with prostate cancer have about a 50-percent increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE), a study has found.

The study used data from the Nationwide Prostate Cancer Database of Sweden and included 92,105 men with prostate cancer and 466,241 men without the disease (comparison cohort). These cohorts were matched based on birth year and residential region.

Over a median follow-up of 4.5 years, there were 2,955 men in the prostate cancer cohort and 9,774 men in the comparison cohort who experienced a first VTE. About 52 percent of VTE cases in both cohorts were deep vein thrombosis.

VTE occurred a median of 2.5 years (interquartile range [IQR], 0.9–4.7) in the prostate cancer cohort and a median of 2.9 years (IQR, 1.3–5.0) in the comparison cohort.

The crude incidence rate of VTE in the prostate cancer cohort was 6.54 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 6.31–6.78) per 1,000 person-years, which was higher than the 4.27 (95 percent CI, 4.18–4.35) per 1,000 person-years recorded in the comparison cohort.

The incidence proportion ratios comparing VTE incidence in the prostate cancer cohort vs comparison cohort dropped from 2.53 (95 percent CI, 2.26–2.83) at 6 months to 1.59 (95 percent CI, 1.52–1.67) at 5 years.

Multivariable Cox regression analysis indicated that compared with the comparison cohort, the prostate cancer cohort had nearly 50-percent higher risks of deep vein thrombosis (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.48, 95 percent CI, 1.39–1.57) and pulmonary embolism (aHR, 1.47, 95 percent CI, 1.39–1.56).

In light of the findings, physicians should be mindful of the marked increase in VTE risk in prostate cancer patients to help ensure timely diagnosis.