Does dalteparin PROTECT better than heparin?
Crit Care. 2011 Dec 8;15(6):315
Authors: Przybysz T, Huang D
Abstract
EXPANDED ABSTRACT: CITATION: The PROTECT Investigators for the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group: Dalteparin versus Unfractionated Heparin in Critically Ill Patients. N Engl J Med 2011, 364:1305-1314. BACKGROUND: It is unclear whether there is a clinically significant advantage to prophylactic low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) versus unfractionated heparin (UFH) in mixed medical/surgical critically ill adult patients. METHODS: Objective: To compare once daily dalteparin with twice daily unfractionated heparin for primary prophylaxis of proximal deep venous thrombosis in critically ill adults.Design: A superiority randomized double-blinded controlled trial from 2006 to 2010 in both medical and surgical ICUs. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT00182143)Setting: Multi-center, international medical and surgical intensive care units (ICUs)Subjects: Critically ill adults expected to remain in the ICU for at least 3 days.Intervention: Patients were randomized to either twice daily UFH or daily dalteparin for the duration of ICU admission.Outcomes: The primary endpoint was proximal leg deep venous thrombosis (DVT), at least three days after randomization, detected on twice weekly screening ultrasound. Secondary endpoints were: any DVT, pulmonary embolism (PE), venous thromboembolism (VTE), death, heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), major bleeding, and composite death/VTE. RESULTS: Three thousand seven hundred and forty-six subjects were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. Proximal leg DVT occurred in 96 of 1873 (5.1%) patients randomized to dalteparin versus 109 of 1873 (5.8%) patients randomized to UFH (hazard ratio in the dalteparin group, 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.68 to 1.23; P = 0.57). The incidence of PE was 1.3% in the dalteparin group compared to 2.3% in the UFH group (hazard ratio, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.30 to 0.88; P = 0.01). There was no mortality difference and no difference in major bleeding between the two study arms. There was a statistically significant decrease in incidence of HIT in the dalteparin group in the per-protocol analysis, but not in the intention-to-treat analysis. LIMITATIONS: Comparing the incidence of PE was a secondary endpoint and the study was not appropriately powered for this conclusion. CONCLUSIONS: Among critically ill adult patients, dalteparin was not superior to UFH at preventing proximal lower extremity DVTs. There is a suggestion that dalteparin might be superior to UFH at preventing pulmonary embolism but a larger trial is necessary to confirm this result.
PMID: 22152126 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]