Their risk of bleeding is lower than in nonagenarians

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) can occur in anyone and at any time, but it is more common among older people.

As patient age increases, so does the risk of bleeding caused by anticoagulant treatment, so administering anticoagulant to people over the age of 100 years may carry a high risk of bleeding.

Researchers from the RIETE registry analysed this situation in an article published recently in the European Journal of Internal Medicine.

Less bleeding in centenarians

At present, the RIETE Registry has information on more than 67,000 patients. For their study, the specialists focused on the 47 patients more than 100 years old (0.08% of the total), 10 men and 37 women.

Of these 47 patients, 21 experienced pulmonary embolism and the remaining 26 patients had deep vein thrombosis. In addition, most had other associated diseases, such as severe renal failure (74%), anaemia (64%) and chronic heart failure (30%), and 34% were taking platelet aggregation inhibitors (which increases the risk of bleeding).

Most of these centenarians (95%) were initially treated with low-molecular-weight heparin. Then, 30% continued with vitamin K antagonists and 62% remained with low-molecular-weight heparin.

During the time that the anticoagulant treatment lasted (139 days), mortality was high: 32% of these people more than 100 years old died. Of them, two died of pulmonary embolism, but there was no episode of severe bleeding. These results suggest that the standard anticoagulant treatment is safe in centenarians.

Several studies indicate that people who have reached the age of 100 are “great survivors” who respond differently to certain diseases. These data show that the risk of bleeding in centenarians is lower than the risk of bleeding in nonagenarians.