Biomarker derived risk scores predict venous thromboembolism and major bleeding among patients with COVID-19.

Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk is increased in patients with COVID-19 infection. Understanding which patients are likely to develop VTE may inform pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis decision making. The hospital-associated venous thromboembolism-Intermountain Risk Score (HA-VTE IMRS) and the hospital-associated major bleeding-Intermountain Risk Score (HA-MB IMRS) are risk scores predictive of VTE and bleeding that were derived from only patient age and data found in the complete blood count (CBC) and basic metabolic panel (BMP).

Objectives: We assessed the HA-VTE IMRS and HA-MB IMRS for predictiveness of 90-day VTE and major bleeding, respectively, among patients diagnosed with COVID-19, and further investigated if adding D-dimer improved these predictions. We also reported 30-day outcomes.

Patients/methods: We identified 5047 sequential patients with a laboratory confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and a CBC and BMP between 2 days before and 7 days following the diagnosis of COVID-19 from March 12, 2020, to February 28, 2021. We calculated the HA-VTE IMRS and the HA-MB IMRS for all patients. We assessed the added predictiveness of D-dimer obtained within 48 hours of the COVID test.

Results: The HA-VTE IMRS yielded a c-statistic of 0.70 for predicting 90-day VTE and adding D-dimer improved the c-statistic to 0.764 with the corollary sensitivity/specificity/positive/negative predictive values of 49.4%/75.7%/6.7%/97.7% and 58.8%/76.2%/10.9%/97.4%, respectively. Among hospitalized and ambulatory patients separately, the HA-VTE IMRS performed similarly. The HA-MB IMRS predictiveness for 90-day major bleeding yielded a c-statistic of 0.64.

Conclusion: The HA-VTE IMRS and HA-MB IMRS predict 90- and 30-day VTE and major bleeding among COVID-19 patients. Adding D-dimer improved the predictiveness of the HA-VTE IMRS for VTE.