Chemoprophylaxis Plus Early Ambulation

Overview

Pulmonary embolism (PE) can be a devastating postoperative complication and the leading cause of mortality after thoracic surgery. PE together with deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is called venous thromboembolism (VTE), whereas PE caused much more serious situation than DVT. Huge amount of data have demonstrated that thromboprophylaxis after surgery is very important to prevent postoperative VTE, especially after orthopedic surgery and plaster surgery. Moreover, for thoracic surgery, American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) has published prevention guidelines of VTE in non-orthopedic surgical patients and has been used widely, but unfortunately prophylaxis measures had often been underused in China. However, to be honest, there could be a big difference between Chinese and western populations, for example, what guidelines recommended thrombolysis therapy in diagnosed massive or sub-massive PE patients is tissue type plasminogen activator (t-PA) 100 mg, while in China 50 mg has the same effect. So investigators wanted to establish if the prophylaxis measures what they were using currently are suitable for Chinese thoracic surgical patients.

Investigators enrolled 598 patients who were sent to thoracic postoperative intensive care unit (ICU) ward right after surgery from August 8 to September 12 of 2017 and those patients stayed in ICU for at least 24 hours. Excluded non-lung surgery there were 581 lung surgery cases. Investigators adopted the Caprini VTE risk assessment model from Boston Medical Center (BMC) in United States of America (USA). According to different risk level, participants received different thromboprophylaxis strategies. Early ambulation alone was for patients at low risk (Caprini 0-4), early chemoprophylaxis plus early ambulation was for patients at moderate (Caprini 5-8) or high risk (Caprini ≥9). Early chemoprophylaxis means low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH) 3075 IU (WHO Units) injection subcutaneously one time a day no later than 24 hours after surgery. Early ambulation means activity out of bed no later than 24 hours after surgery. Thromboprophylaxis contraindication included chest tube drainage more than 500 ml or major bleeding during operation or surgeons refusing to use thromboprophylaxis because they thought that patients would benefit more from not performing early ambulation or chemoprophylaxis. Some patients received chemoprophylaxis after they moved back to regular ward out of ICU which was called late chemoprophylaxis which means more than 24 hours after surgery. All chemoprophylaxis were used only during hospitalization. When participants were discharged, no extended treatment prescribed. However, they were followed up twice on 30 days and 60 days after surgery by phone call.