Deep vein thrombosis after major orthopedic surgery in Taiwan: A prospective cross-sectional study and literature review

Deep vein thrombosis after open hepatectomy or other major upper abdominal surgery in Taiwan: A prospective and cross-sectional study relevant to the issue of pharmacological thromboprophylaxis

BACKGROUD/PURPOSE

Venous thromboembolism, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), is an important complication in patients who underwent open hepatic surgery as well as other major upper abdominal surgery. This study aims to investigate the occurrence of postoperative DVT without pharmacological thromboprophylaxis in such cohorts in Taiwan.

METHODS

This is a prospective, cross-sectional cohort study conducted from March 2010 to December 2011. Patients who underwent major upper abdominal surgery, including open hepatectomy, were enrolled. Color duplex compression ultrasonography (CUS) was used to detect DVT. Symptomatic PE was excluded if there were no suggestive respiratory symptoms or sudden death. Relevant clinicopathological and surgical information of each patient was collected and analyzed.

RESULTS

195 patients (118 male and 77 female) were enrolled, with a median age of 63.6 years. The majority (169/195, 88.7%) were treated for active malignancy. Totally 147 patients received open hepatectomy. Only one asymptomatic and distal postoperative DVT event was identified by CUS, which occurred on a 73-year-old female patient who received a left lateral segmental hepatectomy for removing the advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (pathologic stage, T3aN0M0). No cases of symptomatic PE or sudden death were observed. No correlation between DVT and precipitating factor was demonstrated in our cohort.

CONCLUSION

Without pharmacological thromboprophylaxis, a low rate of postoperative DVT among patients undergoing open hepatectomy (0.7%, 1/147) or major upper abdominal surgery (0.5%, 1/195) in Taiwan was reported. A distinctively regional role of pharmacological thromboprophylaxis for hepatic surgery was also suggested by our data.

Identification of thrombotic biomarkers in orthopedic surgery patients by plasma proteomics

BACKGROUND

Due to the poor specificity of D-dimer, more accurate thrombus biomarkers are clinically needed to improve the diagnostic power of VTE.

METHODS

The plasma samples were classified into low-risk group (n = 6) and high-risk group (n = 6) according to the Caprini Thrombosis Risk Assessment Scale score. Data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) was performed to identify the proteins in the 12 plasma samples. Bioinformatics analysis including volcano plot, heatmap, KEGG pathways and chord diagram analysis were drawn to analyze the significantly differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) between the two groups. Then, another 26 plasma samples were collected to verify the key proteins as potential biomarkers of VTE in orthopedic surgery patients.

RESULTS

A total of 371 proteins were identified by DIA-MS in 12 plasma samples. Volcano plotting showed that there were 30 DEPs. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the DEPs were majorly involved in the blood coagulation pathway. The chord diagram analysis demonstrated that proteins SAA1, VWF, FLNA, ACTB, VINC, F13B, F13A and IPSP in the DEPs were significantly related to blood coagulation. VWF and F13B were selected for validation experiments. ELISA test showed that, as compared with those in the low-risk group, the level of VWF in the high-risk sera was significantly increased.

CONCLUSIONS

The level of VWF in the high-risk group of thrombosis after orthopedic surgery was significantly higher than that in the low-risk group of preoperative thrombosis, suggesting that VWF may be used as a potential thrombus biomarker in orthopedic surgery patients.