Comparison of the HAS-BLED, ORBIT and ATRIA bleeding risk scores in 399,344 patients with atrial fibrillation and cancer

Abstract Background The presence of cancer worsens the prognosis of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). However, the association between cancer type and specific bleeding events has been scarcely investigated. Furthermore, the performance of bleeding risk scores, such HAS-BLED, ORBIT and ATRIA, in this high-risk subgroup of AF patients is unclear. Purpose To investigate the incidence rate (IR) of major, gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) according to cancer types. We also investigated the performance of HAS-BLED, ATRIA and ORBIT scores. HASBLED ≥3, ATRIA ≥5 and ORBIT ≥4 were defined as high-risk. Methods Observational retrospective cohort study including 399,344 patients with AF and cancer. Results Mean age was 77.9±10.2 years and 63.2% were men. During a mean follow-up of 2.0 years, the IR of major bleeding was as high as 8.41%/year, GI bleeding was 3.61%/year and ICH 1.33%/year. Major bleedings were more frequent in liver (12.68%/year), leukaemia (12.39%/year), pancreas (11.71%/year), bladder (11.67%/year) and myeloma (11.64%/year). GI bleeding were highest in liver (7.54%/year), pancreas (7.42%/year) and gastric (5.51%/year). The highest IR of ICH was found in leukaemia (1.89%/year), myeloma (1.52%/year), lymphoma and liver (1.45%/year) and pancreas cancer (1.41%/year). Figure 1 shows the hazard ratios and AUC values for the three scores against each endpoint. All the three scores were significantly associated with major, GI and ICH. The HAS-BLED score performed better than others for ICH prediction, while the ORBIT score showed the best predictivity for major and GI bleedings (p<0.0001 for all AUC comparisons) Conclusions Cancer increases the risk of bleeding in patients with cancer, with specific differences according to each cancer type. HAS-BLED score identified patients at highest risk for ICH and the ORBIT score for major and GI bleeding. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None. Figure 1