Tinzaparin Effective for Venous Thromboembolism in Patients with Cancer

Cancer drug significantly reduces the risk for clinically relevant non-major bleeding.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a serious condition in patients with cancer that causes illness and death in already susceptible individuals.

However, this condition can be treated with low-molecular-weight heparin, which is recommended over warfarin by clinical practice guidelines. These recommendations are based off a single, large randomized trial with supportive evidence from other smaller studies that were conducted over 10 years ago, according to the study.

Researchers evaluated 900 adult patients with active cancer and documented deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism to tinzaparin once daily for 6 months compared with tinzaparin traditional therapy once daily for 5 to 10 days followed by warfarin at a dose adjusted to maintain the international normalized ration within the therapeutic range for 6 months.

The patients were enrolled in 164 centers across worldwide between August 2010 and November 2013. Data was collected at a follow up of 180 days and again 30 days after the last administered medication dose.

VTE recurred in 31 of 449 patients treated with tinzaparin and 45 of 451 patients treated with warfarin. No difference in major bleeding or overall mortality were detected.

Additionally, the study showed that tinzaparin significantly reduced the risk of clinically relevant non-major bleeding compared with warfarin.

“Together with the adverse events data, [this trial] demonstrated that tinzaparin, even when given at a full therapeutic dose for up to 6 months, is safe in a broad oncology population,” the authors write. “Further studies are needed to assess whether the efficacy outcomes would be different in patients at higher risk of recurrent VTE.”