Venous Thromboembolism in Patients with Sarcoma: A Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: Little has been published about the association of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and sarcoma. In this study, we sought to identify clinical features of patients with sarcoma presenting at least one VTE episode. METHODS: Our study was a retrospective case-control study of a single-institution database with univariate and multivariate analysis using chi-square and Student's t test. A p value less than .05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The overall incidence of VTE in patients with sarcoma was 7.9%. Predictive factors identified by multivariate analysis were metastatic disease and administration of chemotherapy. It was not statistically possible to correlate the risk of VTE with specific sarcoma subtypes, but observations suggested malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, osteosarcoma, and liposarcoma as having the highest propension. CONCLUSION: VTE is not infrequent in patients with sarcoma. Adoption of common guidelines for cancer-associated thrombosis is recommended.