A limited number of studies have evaluated the risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) during neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for esophageal cancer and the efficacy of a D-dimer (DD)-based VTE screening (DBS). In the present study, we aimed to clarify the changes in DD levels and the effectiveness of DBS.
We included 234 patients who underwent esophagectomy between August 2017 and July 2019 and evaluated the changes in DD levels before and after NAC. We had introduced the DBS strategy in August 2018, in which we recommended ultrasound (US) of the leg or computed tomography (CT) with the deep vein thrombosis (DVT) protocol. We then evaluated the incidence of VTE detected by DBS compared with that in the clinical practice as a control.
The DD levels were significantly increased after NAC. After the introduction of DBS, the proportion of patients who underwent US and CT after NAC was significantly increased. VTE was more frequently detected in the DBS group than in the control group (16.7% vs. 3.0%, p < 0.02) among patients who underwent NAC. Pulmonary embolism (PE) during NAC was also more frequent in the DBS than in the control group (7.6% vs. 1.5%, p = 0.06). The DD levels after NAC were significantly higher in patients with VTE than in those without.
NAC for patients with esophageal cancer increases the risk of developing VTE. DBS is useful in identifying asymptomatic DVT and may contribute to improving patient safety.

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