A Prospective Study on the Incidence of Postoperative Venous Thromboembolism in Korean Gastric Cancer Patients: An Inquiry into the Application of Western Guidelines to Asian Cancer Patients

Several Western guidelines recommend the routine use of pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis for cancer surgery patients to prevent venous thromboembolism (VTE). However, the necessity of routine pharmacologic perioperative thromboprophylaxis in Asian gastric cancer (GC) patients has not been clearly determined. To determine the necessity of routine perioperative pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis in Korean gastric cancer patients, the incidence of postoperative VTE was prospectively evaluated in gastric cancer patients receiving surgery. Among 610 GC patients who had received surgery, 375 patents underwent routine duplex Doppler ultrasonography (DUS) on days 5–12 following surgery to detect VTE and then VTE-related symptoms and signs were checked at 4 weeks after surgery (cohort A). The 235 patients that declined DUS were registered to cohort B and the occurrence of postoperative VTE was retrospectively analyzed. In cohort A, symptomatic or asymptomatic VTE until 4 weeks after surgery was detected in 9 patients [2.4%; 95% confidence interval (CI); 0.9–3.9]. Tumor stage was a significant factor related to VTE development [stage I, 1.4%; stage II/III, 2.4%; stage IV, 9.7% (P = 0.008)]. In multivariate analysis, patients with stage IV had a higher postoperative VTE development [odds ratio, 8.18 (95% CI, 1.54–43.42)] than those with stage I. In cohort B, a low incidence of postoperative VTE was reaffirmed; only one postoperative VTE case (0.4%) was observed. In conclusion, the incidence of postoperative VTE in Korean GC patients was only 2.4%. Risk-stratified applications of perioperative pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis are thought to be more appropriate than the routine pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis in Korean GC patients receiving surgery.