Incidence of venous thromboembolism and the role of D-dimer as predictive marker in patients with advanced gastric cancer receiving chemotherapy:A prospective study

摘要

AIM To investigated the incidence and risk factors of venous thromboembolism(VTE) in patients with advanced gastric cancer(AGC) receiving chemotherapy.METHODS All consecutive chemotherapy-na?ve patients with AGC who would receive palliative chemotherapy between November 2009 and April 2012 in our hospital were recruited. Their pretreatment clinical and laboratory variables, including D-dimer, were recorded. The frequency of VTE development and survival rates during each chemotherapy cycle and regularly thereafter were assessed.RESULTS A total of 241 patients enrolled between November 2009and April 2012 were analyzed. During a median followup duration of 10.8 mo(95%CI: 9.9-11.7), 27 patients developed VTE and the incidence of VTE was 17.5%(95%CI: 10.5-24.0, 12.0 events/100 person-years). The 6-mo and 1-year cumulative incidences were 7.8%(95%CI: 4.2%-11.4%) and 12.4%(95%CI: 7.3-17.2), respectively. Thirteen(48.1%) patients were symptomatic and the other 14(51.9%) patients were asymptomatic. Inmultivariate analysis, pretreatment D-dimer level was the only marginally significant risk factor associated with VTE development(hazard ratio = 1.32; 95%CI: 1.00-1.75, P = 0.051).CONCLUSION The incidence of VTE is relatively high in patients with AGC receiving chemotherapy, and pretreatment D-dimer level might be a biomarker for risk stratification of VTE.