Grant: CIHR-ICRH Travel Awards - General pool

While guidelines recommend long-term anticoagulation after the first diagnosis of unprovoked venous thromboembolism (VTE), benefits and harms associated with this approach remain unclear among older adults at risk of non VTE-related mortality. While death is a competing event to recurrent VTE, the long-term risk of all-cause mortality following anticoagulant discontinuation has not been systematically quantified. Aims: 1) To examine risks of all-cause mortality following anticoagulant cessation among patients with first episode of unprovoked VTE, with stratification by age at treatment discontinuation and sex. 2) To determine the contribution of fatal pulmonary embolism (PE) on mortality in this population.