Age-adjusted D-dimer Cutoff Levels to Rule Out Deep Vein Thrombosis: a Prospective Outcome Study

NCT ID: NCT02384135

Last Updated: 2018-10-01

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

UNKNOWN

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

3300 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2015-03-31

Study Completion Date

2019-10-31

Brief Summary

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Prospective validation of an age-adjusted D-dimer cut-off to rule out deep vein thrombosis (DVT)

Detailed Description

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Suspected deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a frequent clinical problem and remains a diagnostic challenge. The diagnostic approach of DVT relies on sequential diagnostic tests, such as the assessment of clinical probability, plasma D-dimer measurement, and compression ultrasonography (CUS).

Clinical probability has a fair predictive accuracy either evaluated implicitly or by clinical prediction rules and is useful for identifying patients with a low prevalence of DVT who can be usually fully investigated by non invasive tests.

The D-dimer test has been extensively evaluated in the exclusion of DVT, particularly in outpatients. ELISA D-dimer and second-generation latex agglutination (immuno-turbidimetric tests) have a remarkably high sensitivity and have been proved safe first-line tests in association with clinical probability to rule out DVT in outcome studies. The clinical usefulness of D-dimer is defined by the proportion of patients in whom DVT may be ruled out by a normal result and it is determined by the specificity. However, ELISA and second-generation latex agglutination (immuno-turbidimetric tests) tests have a quite limited overall specificity of around 35% to 40%.3 Therefore, many investigators tried to increase the D-dimer thresholds in particular in elderly patients to increase the rate of patients in whom the diagnosis could be excluded by this easy and inexpensive test. Several studies have shown that D-dimer levels increase with age, which turns in a decreased specificity of the D-dimer test at the usual threshold in the elderly, and thus to a less useful test to exclude both DVT and pulmonary embolism (PE) in older patients. For example, ELISA D-dimer is able to rule out PE in 60% of patients aged less than 40 years, but in only 5% of patients above the age of 80. In this study, raising the cutoff value to various points between 600 microg/L and 1000 microg/L increased specificity, but this came at the cost of safety with more false negative test results. In this analysis, however, no stratification was made for clinical probability and the sample was small.

Recently, the investigators retrospectively assessed the value of a progressive cutoff adjusted to age in a wide sample of 1712 patients with suspected PE. This "new" cutoff was defined for D-Dimer test positivity in each patient by multiplying patient's age by 10. All patients with a D-Dimer level below 500 microg/L, and all patients above 50 years whose D-Dimer levels were inferior to their age multiplied by 10 were considered as having a negative D-Dimer test. Using the conventional cutoff, the VIDAS® D-Dimer test was negative (below 500 microg/L) in 512/1712 patients (29.9%) and none had PE during initial workup or the three-month follow-up period.

Using the cutoff adjusted to age (cutoff for D-Dimer test positivity equals age multiplied by ten, in microg/L), the figure was as follows. D-Dimer levels were below the adjusted cutoff in 615/1712 patients (35.9%, number needed to test 2.8). This represented a statistically significant 20.1% increase in the number of patients in whom the D-Dimer test was considered as negative, p=0.0002. Of these 615 patients, 5 had PE during initial workup (0.8%, 95 percent confidence interval 0.4 to 1.9%).

In a recently published a prospective outcome validation study of the age-adjusted cutoff in patients with a clinically suspected PE.13 The study included more than 3300 patients with suspected PE and showed that the three-month thromboembolic risk in patients with an nonhigh (or unlikely) clinical probability and a D-Dimer level between 500 microg/L and the age-adjusted cutoff was of 0.3% (95% CI: 0.1 5 to 1.7%). These results were in line with the one found in patients with a D-dimer level below the usual cutoff of 500 microg/L: 0.1% (95% CI: 0.0% to 0.7%). Moreover, in patients above 75 years the age-adjusted cutoff allowed to increase five-fold the number of patients in whom PE could be excluded without imaging test.

As PE and DVT are often considered as a similar disease, the investigators plan a prospective outcome study in which this progressive or "new" cutoff (age X 10 µg/L) will be used in patients with suspected DVT. In this multicentre study, clinical probability will be assessed by the Wells score (Table 1) and an ELISA D-dimer test (Vidas D-dimer Exclusion® test (Biomérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, Paris, France) or an immuno-turbidimetric test Innovance D-dimer (Siemens, Munich, Germany) will be performed. Patients with a nonhigh or "unlikely" clinical probability with the Wells score and a normal "new" D-dimer cutoff will be considered as not having DVT, and will be followed for three-months to assess possible VTE recurrences. The main outcome will be the rate of thromboembolic events during a formal 3-month follow-up in patients not anticoagulated on the basis of this strategy. Patients with a D-dimer measurement above the age-adjusted cutoff will be investigated with CUS as currently admitted.

Conditions

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Deep Vein Thrombosis D-dimer

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NA

Intervention Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Study Purpose

DIAGNOSTIC

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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interventional

Patients with D-dimer levels between the usual cutoff and the age-adjusted cutoff will be left untreated and followed-up for three months

Group Type OTHER

Three-month thromboembolic risk in patient with D-dimer levels between the usual cut-off and the age-adjusted cut-off

Intervention Type OTHER

Interventions

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Three-month thromboembolic risk in patient with D-dimer levels between the usual cut-off and the age-adjusted cut-off

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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Exclusion Criteria

* DVT suspicion raised more than 48 hours after admission to the hospital
* Pregnancy.
* Patients anticoagulated for a disease other than venous thromboembolism (for instance, atrial fibrillation)
* Concommitant PE suspicion
* Life expectancy less than 3 months
* Absence of informed consent
* Incapacity to deliver informed consent
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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The Ottawa Hospital

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

University Medical Center Groningen

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

University Hospital, Geneva

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Marc Righini

Prof

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

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Marc Righini, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University Hospital, Geneva

Grégoire Le Gal, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Ottawa University Hospital

Locations

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Foothills Medical Centre

Calgary, Calgary/Alberta, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Hamilton General Hospital

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Hôpital Monfort

Monfort, Ontario, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Jewish General Hospital

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Royal University Hospital

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Providence Health Care

Vancouver, Vancouver/British Columbia, Canada

Site Status NOT_YET_RECRUITING

Kingston General Hospital

Kingston, Ontario, , Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

The Ottawa Hospital

Ottawa, , Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Thunder Bay regional Health Sciences center

Thunder Bay, Ontario, , Canada

Site Status NOT_YET_RECRUITING

University Health network

Toronto, Ontario, , Canada

Site Status RECRUITING

Grégoire LE GAL

Brest, , France

Site Status RECRUITING

Marc Righini

Geneva, , Switzerland

Site Status RECRUITING

Geneva University Hospital

Geneva, , Switzerland

Site Status RECRUITING

University Hospital of Geneva

Geneva, , Switzerland

Site Status RECRUITING

Countries

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Canada France Switzerland

Central Contacts

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Marc Righini, MD

Role: CONTACT

+41 22 372 92 94

Louise Riberdy, Nurse

Role: CONTACT

+41 22 372 92 92

Facility Contacts

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Eddy Lang, MD

Role: primary

Sam Schulman, MD

Role: primary

905-527-0271 ext. 44479

Shaun Visser, MD

Role: primary

Jeannine Kassis, MD

Role: primary

Susan Kahn, MD

Role: primary

514-340-8222 ext. 4667

Otto Moodley, MD

Role: primary

Robert Stenstrom, MD

Role: primary

Colin Bell, MD

Role: primary

Grégoire Le Gal, MD, PhD

Role: primary

Meghan Garnett, MD

Role: primary

Jennifer Hulme, MD

Role: primary

Grégoire LE GAL, PUPH

Role: primary

298347336 ext. +33

Marc Righini, MD

Role: primary

Marc Righini, MD

Role: primary

+41 22 372 92 94

Louise Riberdy, Nurse

Role: backup

+41 22 372 92 92

Marc Righini, MD

Role: primary

0041 22 372 92 94

Other Identifiers

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14-191

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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