High Incidence of Venous Thromboembolism in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Call for Improved Awareness and Prevention

Abstract

Background: An increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been reported. We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the prevalence of VTE in COVID-19 patients.Methods: The PubMed and Embase databases were searched for studies reporting VTE in COVID-19 patients up to June 27, 2020. The selected studies were predefined into the “suspected screening group” and the “routine screening group.” The VTE prevalence was calculated using random-effect models.Results: We selected 20 studies including a total of 2763 COVID-19 patients. In 2203 COVID-19 patients from the suspected screening group, the pool VTE incidence was 15.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 10.5–21.6%). In 560 COVID-19 patients from the routine screening group, the VTE prevalence was 40.8% (95% CI: 20.6–64.7%). Furthermore, the VTE incidence of critically ill COVID-19 patients from the two groups was 19.6% and 61.4%, respectively, which indicates that critically ill COVID-19 patients were more susceptible to VTE.Conclusions: A high incidence of VTE was observed in COVID-19 patients, especially in severe cases. The incidence of VTE in COVID-19 patients from the routine screening group was higher than that in patients from the suspected screening group. This indicates that a lower threshold of suspicion to perform VTE imaging tests may be reasonable and there is an urgent need to adapt a regular screening strategy for VTE.