Nationally representative estimates of health care burden of venous thromboembolism in hospitalized cancer patients

Importance Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a frequent and often preventable cancer-related co-morbidity. This study evaluates national healthcare burden of patients hospitalized with cancer and VTE diagnoses. Methods The 2021 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) was used to generate nationally representative estimates of cancer-associated thrombotic events identified via International Classification of Diseases-10 coding. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for co-diagnosis rate and all-cause mortality, median hospital charges and length-of-stay (LOS) for cancer admissions with and without VTE were calculated. Results Of 28,443,009 adult US hospitalizations in 2021; 2,907,118(10.2%) listed cancer as a diagnosis. Of these, 234,090(8.1%) had co-diagnosis of VTE [96,335(41%) PE, 172,315(74%) DVT, and 34,560(15%) both PE and DVT]. Median age(interquartile range) for admissions with cancer and VTE was 67(58-76) years with 87.6% admissions classified as major/severe underlying illness. VTE and cancer occurred at significantly higher rates than non-cancer admissions (aOR(95%CI) (aOR)=1.81(1.79-1.83);p