Early versus late venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in patients with severe blunt solid organ injury.

Background: Patients with blunt solid organ injury (BSOI) face heightened thromboembolic risks, prompting scrutiny of early versus late venous thromboembolic (VTE) prophylaxis effects.

Methods: Analyzing TQIP data (2017-2019) for adults (≥18 years) with severe BSOI under non-operative management and VTE prophylaxis, we classified patients into early (≤48 h) and late (>48 h) prophylaxis groups. We conducted a propensity score matching (PSM) to balance the population based on demographics, organ injury severity, vital signs and need for blood transfusion. Data were compared post-PSM.

Results: Among 23,668 patients, mortality was 3.1 %, with 42.2 % receiving early and 57.8 % late VTE prophylaxis. Early prophylaxis correlated with lower mortality (2.1 % vs. 3.9 %), lower rates of failure of non-operative management (12.4 % vs. 16.6 %), stroke (0.7 % vs. 1.2 %), DVT (2.1 % vs. 4.9 %) and PE (1.4 % vs. 2.3 %) (p < 0.001 for all). Late prophylaxis associated with longer hospitalization and ICU stays (p < 0.001 for both). Post-match data showed that compared to early VTE prophylaxis, patients that received late VTE prophylaxis had higher mortality rates (2.5 % vs. 1.9 %), failure of non-operative management (14.6 % vs. 11.8 %), longer hospital (15.8 (8.7) vs. 12.4 (6.7) days) and ICU (8.9 (4.7) vs. 6.8 (3.4) days) LOS, and higher rates of developing thrombotic complications during hospital stay (p < 0.05, for all).

Conclusion: Early VTE prophylaxis not only proves safe for isolated solid organ injury patients but also is associated with lower mortality, mitigating thromboembolic risks and shortening hospital and ICU stays.

Level of evidence: Level III retrospective study.