Summary
In December 2014 the CATCH study was presented at the annual meeting of the American
Society of Hematology. CATCH is a randomized controlled trial comparing the low molecular
weight heparin tinzaparin with warfarin for 6 months extended treatment (=secondary
prophylaxis) of cancer-associated venous thromboembolism (VTE). 6.9 % of patients
in the tanzaparin arm experienced recurrent symptomatic and asymptomatic VTE compared
with 10 % in the warfarin arm, this difference was statistically not significant.
The difference became significant when only symptomatic VTEs were compared. There
was no difference in the incidence of major bleeding events, but significantly fewer
patients experienced clinically relevant non-major bleeding with tinzaparin than warfarin.
The CATCH study is so far the largest study on extended treatment of cancer-associated
VTE. It supports the guideline recommendation that low molecular weight heparins should
be preferred to vitamin K antagonists for anticoagulation of cancer-associated VTE.
Keywords
Cancer-associated venous thromboembolism - CATCH - tinzaparin - LMH