Heparins – DOACS – VKA

Patients with cancer are at increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). At the same time they have often an underlying bleeding risk. That can often make decisions surrounding the administration of anticoagulants complicate. Individual risk-benefit calculation is necessary. During hospital stage the patients get, if there are no contraindications, a medical VTE prophylaxis with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH). Whereas outpatients don`t get a prophylaxis because they are at low risk of thromboembolism. If additional risk factor for VTE exists a decision for medical VTE prophylaxis should be taken into account. In patients with cancer and acute VTE, LMWH is recommended as treatment of choice for initial and long-term management in a body weight adapted dosage. After a period of 3–6 month and if a prolonged treatment is necessary, guidelines allow to switch from LMWH to VKA for further anticoagulant therapy. Beside the established anticoagulants like heparin, vitamin K antagonists, fondaparinux new oral direct anticoagulants (DOACs) were established in the last years. These substances are evaluated in in clinical trials. They are approved for treatment of acute VTE, for secondary prophylaxis and for prevention of ischemic stroke in patients with arterial fibrillation. In the VTE trials, 4–10 % of the enrolled patients had a history of cancer. The data shows that DOACs can prevent recurrent VTE as good as standard therapy with enoxaparin/warfarin without more bleeding complications. The results are encouraging. Because of the limited data the direct oral anticoagulants are not recommended for treatment of VTE at this time. Further studies are necessary.