“We were able to show that, although the risk of arterial thrombosis in patients with malignant tumours is significantly lower than that of venous thrombosis, there is a great variation, depending upon the type of tumour,” says lead author Ella Grilz, describing the new findings. “For example, the risk of arterial thrombosis is much higher in the case of renal or lung cancer than in breast cancer,” she adds.
That is the latest finding of the prospective CATS study (Cancer and Thrombosis Study), which has been running since 2003 and includes more than 2,000 cancer patients. The main focus of the CATS study, led by Ingrid Pabinger and Cihan Ay, is to identify factors that help to predict venous thromboembolism in cancer patients.
