Acute myocardial infarction in von Willebrand disease: characteristics and outcomes

BACKGROUND: Von Willebrand disease (VWD) is the most common inherited bleeding disorder. As treatments have improved prognosis of VWD, age-related diseases, including acute myocardial infarction (AMI), have become more prevalent. The treatment of AMI includes antithrombotic therapies, which increase the risk of bleeding. Current guidelines suggest weighing risks/benefits of antithrombotic therapy in patients with VWD. However, data to inform these discussions are lacking. OBJECTIVE: To characterize outcomes of patients with VWD after AMI. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study utilizing the National Readmissions Database of patients with and without VWD admitted with AMI in 2017 and 2018. Primary outcomes were 90-day any-cause, bleeding-related, and arterial thrombosis-related readmissions. Case-control matching was performed for age, sex (male or female), ST-elevation myocardial infarction, percutaneous coronary intervention, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Time-to-event analysis was performed after matching using Cox proportional hazards regression. RESULTS: A total of 136 patients with VWD were matched with 3400 controls without VWD. At 90 days, there were no differences in all-cause (10.7% vs 11.5%; P = 1.00), arterial thrombosis (1.9% vs 3.1%; P = .77), and bleeding (1.9% vs 0.4%; P = .083) readmission in patients with VWD. VWD was associated with increased risk of 90-day bleeding (hazard ratio [HR], 4.75; 95% CI, 1.05-21.66) but not all-cause (HR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.50-1.67) or arterial thrombosis (HR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.39-2.19) readmission. CONCLUSION: Among patients admitted with AMI, VWD was associated with higher risk of 90-day readmission for bleeding but not any-cause and arterial thrombosis-related readmissions. Further studies are needed to balance bleeding and thrombotic risks post-AMI in patients with VWD.