Incidence and risk of arterial thromboembolism in cancer patients from a safety-net healthcare system.

Abstract

Background: The incidence of and risk factors for arterial thromboembolism (ATE) in patients with cancer, particularly in those with low socioeconomic status, remains understudied.

Objective: We aim to report the association between cancer-related and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and the development of ATE.

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study for patients with newly diagnosed invasive cancer from 2011 to 2021 at a safety-net hospital system. We ascertained ATE outcomes using validated inpatient billing diagnosis codes for myocardial infarction (MI) and ischemic stroke (iCVD). We examined the incidence of ATE after cancer diagnosis using the cumulative incidence competing risk method to account for early mortality and estimated sub-distribution hazard ratios for ATE using multivariable Fine-Gray models.

Results: Among 17,236 patients (45.4% male, median 56 years), the ATE incidence was 1.5% (1.3%-1.6%) at 1-year and 2.8% (2.5%-3.0%) at 5-year after cancer diagnosis. In unadjusted analysis, the 5-year ATE incidence was highest in hematologic malignancies such as multiple myeloma (8.6%) and acute leukemia (7.8%), among patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors (8.3% vs 2.7%), those with poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (PS) (5.4% PS 4 vs 2.2% PS 0), and advanced stage (3.1% IV vs 1.9% I). After multivariable adjustment, only cancer type remained significantly associated with ATE along with known CV risk factors including advanced age, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, history of MI, and history of iCVD.

Conclusions: Both cancer type and traditional CV risk factors are independently associated with the development of ATE in patients with cancer.