Venous thromboembolism more likely in women with diabetes

A research team from the Complexity Science Hub and the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) has analyzed 180,034 patients with Mellitus diabetes and found evidence that the women are at higher risk of venous thromboembolism than men, especially during perimenopause.

In total, massive amounts of data from around 45 million hospitalizations and 7,239,710 patients in Austria between 2003 and 2014. “Our analyzes show for the first time that diabetes mellitus could be associated with venous thromboembolism (VTE) to a greater extent in women than in men”, explained Elma Dervicfrom the Complexity Science Hub.

The risk that women with diabetes mellitus (DM) also suffer from VTE is 1.52 times greater than that of women without DM. For men, on the other hand, the risk is 1.3 times higher. “From the age of 40, in particular, increases the Relative risk of TEV,” explains Carola Deischinger, another of the authors. The effect peaks in women between the ages of 50 and 59, where the risk is 1.65 times higher, according to the results of the study, published in the scientific journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice.

Study data

To determine the gender-specific impact of diabetes mellitus on VTE risk, the scientific team examined a population-based data set. With around 45 million data records, it covers all hospital stays in Austria between 2003 and 2014. Of the 180,034 DM patients, 70,739 were women and 109,295 were men.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) includes two clinical pictures: Deep venous thrombosis and the pulmonary artery embolism, the latter being a dangerous complication of thrombosis. Normally, the risk of developing venous thromboembolism is more or less the same in both sexes.

It is known that diabetes mellitus, a chronic disease which affects more than eight percent of the world’s population, is a risk factor of TEV. “In our study, we again found a 1.4 times higher risk of VTE in patients with diabetes mellitus than in the control group without diabetes mellitus,” says Dervic.

Sex, a differential factor

The novelty is the appearance of the gender. While traditional treatment methods could barely account for gender-specific differences in many diseases, “thanks to extensive research efforts and Big Data analytics, we already know a lot more about it today,” says Dervic.

As a result, these differences can be analyzed in detail and treatments adjusted accordingly. This study was preceded by two others that addressed the gender-specific differences of patients with diabetes mellitus in the expression of the depressionon the one hand, and the disease of Parkinson’s, for another. In this case, significant differences were also observed based on gender.