Association between smoking and recurrence of venous thromboembolism and bleeding in elderly patients with past acute venous thromboembolism

Background: While the association between smoking and arterial cardiovascular events has been well established, the association between smoking and venous thromboembolism (VTE) remains controversial. Objectives: To assess the association between smoking and the risk of recurrent VTE and bleeding in patients who have experienced acute VTE. Patients/methods: This study is part of a prospective Swiss multicenter cohort that included patients aged >= 65 years with acute VTE. Three groups were defined according to smoking status: never, former and current smokers. The primary outcome was the time to a first symptomatic, objectively confirmed VTE recurrence. Secondary outcomes were the time to a first major and clinically relevant non-major bleeding. Associations between smoking status and outcomes were analysed using proportional hazard models for the subdistribution of a competing risk of death. Results: Among 988 analysed patients, 509 (52%) had never smoked, 403 (41%) were former smokers, and 76 (8%) current smokers. After a median follow-up of 29.6 months, we observed a VTE recurrence rate of 4.9 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.7-6.4) per 100 patient-years for never smokers, 6.6 (95% CI 5.1-8.6) for former smokers, and 5.2 (95% CI 2.6-10.5) for current smokers. Compared to never smokers, we found no association between current smoking and VTE recurrence (adjusted sub-hazard ratio [SHR] 1.05, 95% CI 0.49-2.28), major bleeding (adjusted SHR 0.59, 95% CI 0.25-1.39), and clinically relevant non-major bleeding (adjusted SHR 1.21, 95% CI 0.73-2.02). Conclusions: In this multicentre prospective cohort study, we found no association between smoking status and VTE recurrence or bleeding in elderly patients with VTE. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.