Trends in Percutaneous Device Use for the Treatment of Venous Thromboembolism Over Time in the PINC AI Healthcare...

The number of different methods of reperfusion therapy to treat venous thromboembolism (VTE) has increased substantially. Nevertheless, investigation of data representativeness and device-level use in administrative databases has been limited. Using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) and the PINC AI Healthcare Database (PHD), all hospital encounters with a diagnosis code of VTE were identified between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2020. Patient demographics and trends in treatment modalities were evaluated over time. An algorithm was developed to identify specific devices used for VTE treatment in the PHD cohort. A total of 145,870 patients with VTE treated with reperfusion therapy were identified in the NIS (pulmonary embolism [PE] 88,725, isolated deep vein thrombosis [iDVT] 57,145) and 39,311 in the PHD (PE 25,383, iDVT 13,928). Patient demographics were qualitatively similar in the NIS and PHD. Over time, there was a significant increase in the use of mechanical thrombectomy in the PE and iDVT populations (p <0.05 in both databases), with catheter-directed thrombolysis use plateauing in PE (p = 0.83 and p = 0.14 in NIS and PHD, respectively) and significantly decreasing for the iDVT population (p <0.05 in both databases). In the PHD cohort, specific reperfusion devices were identified in 14,105 patients (PE 9,098, iDVT 5,007). In conclusion, the use of mechanical thrombectomy for the treatment of VTE has increased over time, whereas the rates of catheter-directed thrombolysis therapy have remained stagnant or decreased. Further research is needed to understand the uptake of these treatment modalities and the unique abilities of the PHD to study specific device therapy in the VTE population.