Evidence Hub

Randomized controlled trial of rivaroxaban versus warfarin in the management of acute non-neoplastic portal vein thrombosis

A. Hanafy, S. Abdel-salam, Mohammed M. Dawoud

Vascular pharmacology, 2019

578 participants · 137 citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Anticoagulation therapy is the main line of treatment for acute portal vein thrombosis (PVT) in the absence of cirrhosis. However, the use of this therapy in cirrhotic PVT is still with doubtful evidence. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban compared to warfarin for the management of acute non-neoplastic PVT in Hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related compensated cirrhosis.

METHODS

Out of 578 patients with chronic HCV infection, 80 patients with acute PVT who had undergone splenectomy due to hypersplenism and 4 patients with acute PVT due to portal pyemia were selected. The patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to the study group (n = 40), in which the patients received rivaroxaban 10 mg/12 h, or the control group (n = 40), in which the patients received warfarin.

RESULTS

In the rivaroxaban group, the resolution of PVT was achieved in 34 patients (85%) within 2.6 ± 0.4 months and delayed, partial recanalization after 6.7 ± 1.2 months (n = 6.15%). Complications such as major bleeding, abnormal liver functions, death, or recurrence did not occur during treatment, and patients in this group showed improved short-term survival rate (20.4 ± 2.2 months) compared to the survival rate in the control group (10.6 ± 1.8 months) in which warfarin achieved complete resolution in 45% of patients. Complications such as severe upper GI tract bleeding (43.3%), hepatic decompensation (22.5%), progression to mesenteric ischemia (12.5%), recurrence (10%), and…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 578 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free