Studies on VTE and diabetes, on DOAC use or on VTE in young patients, among others

One more year, now making thirteen years, the Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Multidisciplinary Forum took place in Zaragoza. This meeting brings together Spanish doctors specialized in VTE and serves to present and discuss new findings related to deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism using the RIETE Registry as a common work tool.

For this edition of the forum, the international figures invited included Professor Paolo Prandoni, of the University of Padua, the internist Pierpaolo Di Micco of the Buon Consiglio hospital of Naples and the pneumologist Laurent Bertoletti of the Jean Monnet University of Saint-Étienne (France).

For two days, about 300 doctors attended the presentations, round tables and panel discussions organized for the occasion. Among the studies presented, the following were noteworthy:

• People with diabetes who suffer VTE during anticoagulant treatment have a higher risk of developing myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction (stroke) than of VTE recurrence.
• Direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are more effective and safer than conventional treatment in people with VTE and special circumstances (disseminated cancer, pregnancy, liver failure, severe kidney failure, low platelet counts or bleeding) that usually exclude them from clinical trials of these drugs.
• Patients under the age of 50 years with pulmonary embolism while receiving anticoagulant treatment have much less serious bleeding than recurrences (unlike what occurs in patients over 50 years of age).
• Pulmonary embolismis a relatively common cause (one in five) of cases of syncope seen in the emergency medicine department.

In addition, the Forum was the setting for presenting the PE Code (pulmonary embolism), which will soon be operational at Hospital Ramón y Cajal of Madrid, which will coordinate the different specialists involved in complicated cases of pulmonary embolism, as is done in the case of the Infarction Code and the Stroke Code.