Effect of Delay and Disruption in Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis in Trauma Patients: Case-Control Study

Background: Trauma patients are at high risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) and bleeding. The purpose of this study was to characterize percentage of VTE chemoprophylaxis given to trauma patients with and without a VTE.

Study design: This retrospective case-control study evaluated trauma patients admitted to a Level I trauma center. Adult patients were included when hospitalized at least 2 days and had a head abbreviated injury score of 1 or less. Non-VTE patients were matched by decade of life and injury severity score (ISS). The primary outcome was percentage of VTE chemoprophylaxis received over the first 14 days of admission. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared test, Student's t-test, and Cox proportional hazard were used for analysis.

Results: A total of 44 VTE patients were included with 125 matched non-VTE patients. Baseline demographics included age in years (50.7 ± 19.6 vs 49.6 ± 19.4), ISS (18.9 ± 11.3 vs 19 ± 11.6), and lower extremity fracture (54.5% vs 40%), for VTE and non-VTE groups, respectively. The primary outcome of VTE chemoprophylaxis doses given was significantly lower for VTE patients than non-VTE patients (49.3% vs 59.3%, p = 0.0069). Significant predictors of VTE were percentage of VTE chemoprophylaxis doses given (p < 0.0001) and weight (p = 0.0042) based on regression analysis. Notably, there was a 7% decrease in the hazard for VTE for every 1% increase in VTE chemoprophylaxis given.

Conclusions: Patients who developed VTE were more likely to have delays and disruptions in VTE chemoprophylaxis, even after controlling for age, sex, ISS, lower extremity fractures, and number of operations.