Management of venous thromboembolism in patients with cancer: role of dalteparin

Lori-Ann LinkinsDepartment of Hematology and Thrombosis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, CanadaAbstract: Cancer is a major risk factor for the development of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Conventional anticoagulant therapy with a vitamin K antagonist is more problematic in cancer patients due to an increased risk of recurrent VTE, and an increased risk of anticoagulant-related bleeding. In recent years, there has been a shift toward treating cancer patients with VTE with extended duration dalteparin. Dalteparin, a low-molecular-weight heparin, has been shown to be more effective, and as safe as conventional anticoagulant therapy, in cancer patients with VTE. This paper will (a) review the relationship between cancer and VTE, and (b) provide an overview of the role of dalteparin in the management of VTE in patients with cancer.Keywords: dalteparin, cancer, venous thromboembolis

The McMaster Health Information Research Unit: Over a Quarter-Century of Health Informatics Supporting Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) emerged from McMaster University in the 1980-1990s, which emphasizes the integration of the best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. The Health Information Research Unit (HiRU) was created at McMaster University in 1985 to support EBM. Early on, digital health informatics took the form of teaching clinicians how to search MEDLINE with modems and phone lines. Searching and retrieval of published articles were transformed as electronic platforms provided greater access to clinically relevant studies, systematic reviews, and clinical practice guidelines, with PubMed playing a pivotal role. In the early 2000s, the HiRU introduced Clinical Queries—validated search filters derived from the curated, gold-standard, human-appraised Hedges dataset—to enhance the precision of searches, allowing clinicians to hone their queries based on study design, population, and outcomes. Currently, almost 1 million articles are added to PubMed annually. To filter through this volume of heterogenous publications for clinically important articles, the HiRU team and other researchers have been applying classical machine learning, deep learning, and, increasingly, large language models (LLMs). These approaches are built upon the foundation of gold-standard annotated datasets and humans in the loop for active machine learning. In this viewpoint, we explore the evolution of health informatics in supporting evidence search and retrieval processes over the past 25+ years within the HiRU, including the evolving roles of LLMs and responsible artificial intelligence, as we continue to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge, enabling clinicians to integrate the best available evidence into their clinical practice

Role of Gender in the Clinical Presentation of a First Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT) in Outpatients

Abstract BACKGROUND: As clinical assessment of pretest probability (PTP) is now considered the first step in the diagnostic evaluation of DVT it is important to know if the clinical features of DVT are the same in men and women. OBJECTIVES: We sought to answer the following questions: 1) Is the prevalence of DVT the same in men and women who are referred for diagnostic testing? 2) Are the clinical features of DVT the same in men and women? 3) Does the Wells’ clinical prediction model for first DVT perform similarly in men and women? METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of individual patient data from three studies that evaluated diagnostic testing in outpatients with a suspected first episode of DVT. Associations were assessed using univariable and multivariable analyses. RESULTS: A total of 1838 patients were eligible for final analyses, of whom 1132 (62%) were women and 706 (38%) were men. DVT was objectively diagnosed in 208 patients (11%). QUESTION 1: The prevalence of DVT was higher in men (14%) than in women (9%) (p=0.001). In a multivariable analysis that included eleven other clinical variables male gender was independently associated with a higher prevalence of DVT (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1–2.1). QUESTION 2: Of the confirmed episodes of DVT, “swelling of the entire leg” was observed more often in women (41%) than in men (16%) (p3cm” (OR 8.2 vs. 2.9; p 60 yrs” (OR 1.8 vs. 0.9; p=0.02) and “bedridden for greater than 3 days” (OR 3.7 vs. 1.4; p=0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Among outpatients referred with a suspected first episode of DVT, the prevalence of DVT is higher in men than in women but DVT is more extensive in women. Entire leg swelling is a more common and important sign of DVT in women than in men and the Wells prediction rule behaves differently in men than in women