Preoperative Comorbidities as Potential Risk Factors for Venous Thromboembolism after Joint Arthroplasty: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort and Case-Control Studies

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of preoperative comorbidities on the risk of VTE after joint arthroplasty surgery. Of 2235 citations identified for screening, 16 studies reporting 7,395,847 patients were eligible. The results showed that patients with cardiovascular disease, previous VTE history, neurologic disease and high anesthetic ASA rating had significantly higher VTE risk than those with no such preexisting medical comorbidities after joint arthroplasty. The presence of respiratory disease, urinary and kidney disease, coronary artery disease, endocrine disease, cancer and malignant disease, hematological disease and comorbidities index did not increase the risk of VTE in our study. The data suggest that risk assessment of patients may further reduce the overall incidence of DVT and PE from VTE prophylaxis.