Effects of heparin bridging anticoagulation on perioperative bleeding and thromboembolic risks in patients undergoing abdominal malignancy surgery

Recent publications provided controversial results indicating that perioperative heparin bridging anticoagulation (HBA) increased the bleeding risk without decreasing the thromboembolic risk in patients undergoing minor surgery. To investigate if this is also the case in high-risk patients undergoing major abdominal malignancy surgery, we retrospectively collected data of 3268 patients over a 10-year period. After the interruption of preoperative antithrombotic agents, HBA was initiated with a prophylactic-dose of unfractionated heparin in 133 patients (HBA group), and 62 patients did not receive HBA (non-HBA group). The incidence of exogenous blood transfusion (EBT) and thromboembolic events (TEEs) within 30 days after surgery were compared between the HBA and non-HBA groups. The results showed that the incidence of EBT and TEEs was similar between the two groups (23.3 vs 19.4 %; P = 0.535) and (4.1 vs 3.2 %; P = 0.821), respectively. The amount of intraoperative bleeding and the length of postoperative hospital stay were also similar [median (quantile 1−3); 192 (71–498) vs 228 ml (100–685); P = 0.422] and [12 (9–19) vs 14.5 days (10–21); P = 0.052], respectively. These findings may suggest it is unlikely that prophylactic-dose HBA affects bleeding and thromboembolic risks in patients undergoing major abdominal malignancy surgery.