KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to determine venous thromboembolism incidence and associated risk factors in advanced ovarian cancer patients undergoing NACT.
- The results indicated an incidence of venous thromboembolism in advanced ovarian cancer patients on NACT, suggesting potential universal thromboprophylaxis.
Venous thromboembolism poses substantial risks of morbidity and mortality, often causing treatment delays in ovarian cancer patients.
Kristin A. Black and the team aimed to determine the occurrence of venous thromboembolism and ascertain associated risk factors among advanced ovarian cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT).
The study conducted a systematic search of biomedical databases, including Ovid Medline, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL, and Embase, initially on December 6, 2022, and updated on December 21, 2023, to identify peer-reviewed articles.
The eligible studies, comprising cohort studies or randomized controlled trials, assessed the incidence of venous thromboembolism in ovarian cancer patients undergoing NACT. Risk of bias evaluation utilized the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for cohort studies and the Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomized controlled trials. Meta-analysis employing random effects was employed to synthesize findings across studies.
About 2636 studies underwent screening, resulting in the inclusion of 11 studies, 10 of which were retrospective cohort studies and 1 of which was a randomized controlled trial. The incidence of venous thromboembolism among the included studies varied from 0% to 18.9%.
Upon pooling, the overall incidence rate of venous thromboembolism was 10% (95% CI 7% to 13%). This significance persisted when limited to studies with a low risk of bias, revealing a pooled incidence of 11% (95% CI 9% to 14%).
Additionally, a body mass index (BMI) of ≥30 kg/m2 emerged as a significant risk factor for venous thromboembolism, with a pooled odds ratio of 1.76 (95% CI 1.13 to 2.76).
The study concluded that advanced ovarian cancer patients undergoing NACT exhibited a 10% incidence of venous thromboembolism, implying a potential need for universal thromboprophylaxis.
The authors did not disclose receiving a specific grant for this research from any funding agency, whether public, commercial, or not-for-profit.
Source: https://ijgc.bmj.com/content/early/2024/03/01/ijgc-2023-005166
Trial registration: PROSPERO CRD42022339602
Black KA, Bowden S, Chu P, et al. (2024). “Incidence of venous thromboembolism in patients with ovarian cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy: systematic review and meta-analysis.” International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer Published Online First: 01 March 2024. doi: 10.1136/ijgc-2023-005166
