Time Trends and Excess Mortality Compared to Population Controls after a First-Time Pulmonary Embolism or Deep Vein Thrombosis.

Background:  Recent data on temporal trends in excess mortality for patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) compared with the general population are scarce.

Methods:  A nationwide Swedish register study conducted from 2006 to 2018 including 68,960 PE and 70,949 DVT cases matched with population controls. Poisson regression determined relative risk (RR) for 30-day and 1-year mortality trends while Cox regression determined adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs). A significance level of 0.001 was applied.

Results:  In PE cases, both 30-day mortality (12.5% in 2006 to 7.8% in 2018, RR: 0.95 [95% CI: 0.95-0.96], p < 0.0001) and 1-year mortality (26.5 to 22.1%, RR: 0.98 [0.97-0.98], p < 0.0001) decreased during the study period. Compared with controls, no significant change was seen in 30-day (aHR: 33.08 [95% CI: 25.12-43.55] to 24.64 [95% CI: 18.81-32.27], p = 0.0015 for interaction with calendar year) or 1-year (aHR: 5.85 [95% CI: 5.31-6.45] to 7.07 [95% CI: 6.43-7.78], p = 0.038) excess mortality. The 30-day excess mortality decreased significantly (aHR: 39.93 [95% CI: 28.47-56.00) to 24.63 [95% CI: 17.94-33.83], p = 0.0009) in patients with PE without known cancer before baseline, while the excess 1-year mortality increased (aHR: 3.55 [95% CI: 3.16-3.99] to 5.38 [95% CI: 4.85-5.98], p < 0.0001) in PE cases surviving to fill a prescription of anticoagulation. In DVT cases, 30-day and 1-year mortality declined, while excess mortality compared with controls remained stable.

Conclusion:  In general, the improved mortality following PE and DVT paralleled population trends. However, PE cases without cancer had decreasing excess 30-day mortality, whereas those surviving to fill a prescription for anticoagulant medication showed increasing excess 1-year mortality.