Nationwide practice patterns for the use of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis among men undergoing radical prostatectomy

To examine the practice patterns and predictors of VTE prophylaxis following radical prostatectomy (RP). This was a population-based observational study of 94,709 men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer (ICD-9 code 185) who underwent RP were identified from a hospital-based database from 2000 to 2010, including 68,244 (72.1 %) open RP (ORP) and 26,465 (27.9 %) robotic-assisted laparoscopic RP (RALP). VTE prophylaxis was classified as none, mechanical, pharmacologic, or combination. Following RP, 35,591 (52.2 %) received mechanical, 4,945 (7.2 %) pharmacologic, 7,720 (10.6 %) combination, and 20,438 (30.0 %) no VTE prophylaxis. A total of 245 VTE events (145 DVT, 114 PE) were identified, representing 0.25 % of all procedures. Men with > 2 comorbidities (OR = 2.44; 95 % CI 1.78-3.35) and those who were black (OR = 1.44; 95 % CI 1.06-1.97) were more likely to have a VTE. Men who had RALP (OR = 0.61; 95 % CI 0.45-0.99), surgery at high-volume hospitals (OR = 0.45; 95 % CI 0.28-0.73), or received prophylaxis (OR = 0.67; 95 % CI 0.50-0.88) were less likely to develop a VTE. Despite the observation that VTE prophylaxis reduces the risk of VTE by 40 %, VTE prophylaxis was not used in almost one-third of men who underwent radical prostatectomy.