Venous thromboembolic events (VTE) can significantly complicate postoperative period in neurosurgical patients. It is known that patients with brain tumors are especially susceptible to VTE.
To determine the incidence and risk factors of VTE in patients with various brain tumors.
All patients with brain tumors underwent surgery in 2019 (=610). They were divided into the groups depending on tumor type: sellar region, intracerebral, extracerebral neoplasms and metastases. All patients underwent screening and prevention of VTE in accordance with the protocol accepted in the hospital. We analyzed the incidence of VTE in each group and significance of various risk factors.
Overall incidence of VTE was 14.9% (91 cases). Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) was the most common – 85 cases (93.4%). Less common events were DVT combined with pulmonary embolism (PE) (=5, 5.5%) and PE alone (=1; 1.1%). PE caused death in 2 cases (0.3%). In patients with sellar tumors, incidence was 21.7% [13.4%; 29.35%], among intracerebral tumors – 13.8% [9.04%; 18.62%], extracerebral neoplasms – 15.4% [11.02%; 19.69%], metastases – 7.9% [1.32%; 11.84%]. Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed some risk factors of VTEs such as gender, age, surgery time, length of ICU-stay over 12 hours, body mass index >30 kg/m. Moreover, risk factors have different significance in patients with different types of tumors.
In this study, we found a high incidence of VTE among patients with brain tumors. Incidence and risk factors of VTE depend on the type of tumor.

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