Venous thromboembolism in patients undergoing distal cholangiocarcinoma surgery: Prevalence, risk factors, and outcomes

Background: To investigate venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients undergoing distal cholangiocarcinoma (dCCA) surgery, we performed a single-center study to assess its prevalence, risk factors, prognosis. Method: We studied a total of 177 patients undergoing dCCA surgery from January 2017 to April 2022. Demographic, clinical data, laboratory data (including lower extremity ultrasound findings), and outcome variables were obtained, and compared between VTE and non-VTE groups. Results: Of the 177 patients undergoing dCCA surgery (aged 65.2 ± 9.6 years; 108 (61.0%) male), 64 patients developed VTE after surgery. Logistic multivariate analysis showed that, age, operation procedure, TNM stage, ventilator duration and preoperative D-dimer were independent risk factors. Based on these factors, we constructed the nomogram to predict VTE after dCCA for the first time. The areas under the receiver operating curve (ROC) of the nomogram were 0.80 (95% CI: 0.72–0.88) and 0.79 (95% CI: 0.73–0.89) in the training and validation groups, respectively. Patients developed VTE had a worse prognosis by Kaplan–Meier curve analysis (p = 0.001). Conclusion: The prevalence of VTE is high and is associated with adverse outcomes in patients undergoing dCCA surgery. We developed a nomogram assessing VTE risk, which may help clinicians to screen out people at high risk for VTE and to undertake rational preventive measures.