HIDDEN2 – Hospital Deep Vein Thrombosis Detection Study in Cancer Patients Receiving Palliative Care

End of project summary

Main Messages

• UK guidelines recommend risk assessment and subsequent thromboprophylaxis for all cancer patients admitted acutely in to hospital.
• Patients receiving palliative acre are at particularly high risk of developing venous thromboembolism and theoretically should receive thromboprophylaxis.
• Data from the hospice /specialist palliative care unit population has shown a high prevalence of venous thromboembolism (28%) with no impact on symptoms or survival, suggesting thromboprophylaxis is not warranted in these patients.
• The majority of palliative care patients are admitted to hospital not hospice /specialist palliative care unit.
• It is not known whether these data are transferrable to palliative care patients admitted to hospital.
• Our research shows a very low prevalence (0.6%) of acute DVT on admission suggesting this population should be considered.

It also demonstrates that despite all being described as palliative patients, those admitted to the hospice setting are phenotypically different.