Review finds fewer DVT hospitalizations with rivaroxaban

Researchers comparing patients given rivaroxaban or low-molecular weight heparin in a hospital setting found that use of rivaroxaban correlated to a 27 percent reduction in hospital admissions among patients with deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Geno J. Merli, MD, from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, and colleagues looked at claims data from the Truven MarketScan Hospital Drug Database from 2011 through 2013. DVT patients treated with rivaroxaban (Xarelto, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, 134 patients) were matched one-to-four with patients treated with low-molecular weight heparin bridged to warfarin (536 patients).

They found that hospitalization rates for patients given rivaroxaban were around 60 percent; meanwhile, the combination of low-molecular weight heparin and warfarin rate was 82 percent. Following rivaroxaban’s introduction in 2012, researchers noted an estimated 3 to 5 percent drop in hospital admissions.

Mean hospital length of stay for those patients taking rivaroxaban was lower when hospitlaizations occurred. Rivaroxaban mean hospital stay was 2.6 days as opposed to low-molecular weight heparin and warfarin’s 3.8 days. Hospital visit rates for DVT patients were also lower among those taking rivaroxaban as opposed to low-molecular weight heparin and warfarin at six months, 4.4 percent vs. 7.2 percent, respectively.

“These findings suggest that rivaroxaban users, despite a high proportion of them being quickly discharged after their index hospital visit, received sufficient initial care (i.e. at least as good as patients treated with warfarin who had longer hospital stays) since they did not have more hospital visits than their matched historical [low-molecular weight heparin]/warfarin users within 1 month, 2 months, 3 months and 6 months of the index hospital visit,” Merli et al wrote.  

The study, published online March 20 in Hospital Practice, was funded by Janssen Pharmaceuticals.