Efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban versus low-molecular-weight heparin for the prevention of symptomatic in-hospital venous thrombosis following primary total hip and knee arthroplasty: a large-sample, multicenter, retrospective study

Description

Yuanping Liao and co-authors compared two blood thinning strategies for preventing vein clots after hip or knee replacement surgery, using records from 26 large teaching hospitals. Their 2026 study covered 11,686 patients operated on between 2014 and 2017, of whom 4,591 received the oral drug rivaroxaban and 7,095 received injections of low molecular weight heparin. The team compared symptomatic deep vein thrombosis and lung embolism rates in hospital, alongside bleeding events, blood loss, and transfusion needs.

Deep vein thrombosis was uncommon overall, at 0.40 percent of patients, but it struck the rivaroxaban group more often. The rate was 0.74 percent with rivaroxaban against 0.18 percent with heparin injections, an odds ratio of 4.07 as reported. The same gap appeared separately in hip patients and knee patients. Only one symptomatic lung embolism occurred, in the heparin group after knee surgery.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13459257