Oral anticoagulant safety in family practice: prognostic accuracy of Bleeding Risk Scores (from the CACAO study)

Fam Pract. 2024 Feb 28;41(1):9-17. doi: 10.1093/fampra/cmad121.

Abstract

Background: To assess bleeding risk of patients treated by oral anticoagulants, several scores have been constructed to assist physicians in the evaluation of the benefit risk. Most of these scores lack a strong enough level of evidence for use in family practice.

Objective: To assess the predictive prognostic accuracy of 13 scores designed to assess the risk of major or clinically relevant non-major (CRNM) bleeding events in a French ambulatory cohort receiving Vitamin-K antagonists (VKA) or direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) in a family practice setting.

Methods: CACAO (Comparison of Accidents and their Circumstances with Oral Anticoagulants) was a multicentre prospective cohort of ambulatory patients prescribed oral anticoagulants. We selected patients from the cohort who had received an oral anticoagulant because of non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) and/or venous thromboembolism (VTE) to be followed during one year by their GP. The following scores were calculated: mOBRI, Shireman, Kuijer, HEMORR2HAGES, ATRIA, HAS-BLED, RIETE, VTE-BLEED, ACCP score, Rutherford, ABH-Score, GARFIEL-AF, and Outcomes Registry for Better InformedTreatment of Atrial Fibrillation (ORBIT). Prognostic accuracy was assessed by using receiver operating characteristic curves and c-statistics.

Results: During 1 year, 3,082 patients were followed. All of the scores demonstrated only poor to moderate ability to predict major bleeding or CRNM in NVAF patients on DOACs (c-statistic: 0.41-0.66 and 0.45-0.58), respectively. The results were only slightly better for patients prescribed VKA (0.47-0.66 and 0.5-0.55, respectively) in this indication. The results were also unsatisfactory in patients treated for VTE.

Conclusion: None of the scores demonstrated satisfactory discriminatory ability when used in family practice.

Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02376777.

Keywords: DVT; NVAF; PE; bleeding; community medicine; quality of care; risk assessment.

MeSH terms

  • Anticoagulants / adverse effects
  • Atrial Fibrillation* / complications
  • Atrial Fibrillation* / drug therapy
  • Cacao*
  • Family Practice
  • Hemorrhage / chemically induced
  • Humans
  • Prognosis
  • Prospective Studies
  • Risk Factors
  • Venous Thromboembolism* / chemically induced
  • Venous Thromboembolism* / drug therapy

Substances

  • Anticoagulants

Associated data

  • ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT02376777