Unprovoked VTE: Should Patients Continue Oral Anticoagulants Beyond 90 Days?

Patients with unprovoked venous thromboembolism (VTE), which occurs in the absence of identifiable risk factors, have a higher risk for recurrent VTE than those with provoked VTE. As a result, guidelines recommend continuing oral anticoagulant (OAC) therapy beyond 3 to 6 months in patients with unprovoked VTE, a practice supported by randomized trials. To compare outcomes with continuing versus stopping anticoagulation in a real-world population, researchers used U.S. claims databases to study 31,000 patients who continued OAC therapy (warfarin or direct OACs) and 31,000 matched patients who discontinued OACs after an initial ≥90 days of treatment.