Efficacy and Safety of Rivaroxaban versus Warfarin for the Treatment of Acute Pulmonary Embolism: A Real-World Study

Background. Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a life-threatening disease. Target-specific anticoagulant rivaroxaban is a direct factor Xa inhibitor that can be safely used without laboratory monitoring. Objective. To investigate the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban versus warfarin for the treatment of acute pulmonary thromboembolism in real-world clinical practice. Method. This was a semiretrospective, semiprospective, and real-world trial involving 128 patients with acute symptomatic pulmonary embolism with or without active tumor or frailty. We compared rivaroxaban to the standard therapy consisting of low-molecular-weight heparin combined with warfarin. The primary efficacy outcome was absorption of thrombus. The principal safety outcome was bleeding episode. Results. There was no significant difference in thrombus absorption between rivaroxaban and standard therapy after 3-month treatment ( P=0.798 , 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.686 to 1.336) or more than 6-month treatment ( P=0.534 , 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.795 to 1.556). There was no decline in efficacy (including computed tomographic pulmonary angiography and recurrence) when the rivaroxaban dose was reduced to 10 mg once daily after 3 months of administration. The ratio of patients without bleeding was 48.84% for rivaroxaban and 19.05% for standard therapy ( P=0.001 ). There was no significant difference in rivaroxaban monotherapy subgroups (including frail patients, tumor patients, and thrombolysis or nonthrombolysis at intermediate-high-risk patients). Conclusion. In this real-world study, the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban alone was not different to standard therapy for pulmonary emboli absorption. With an extension in treatment duration, the rivaroxaban regimen had a higher efficacy and safety than standard therapy and there was no decline in treatment efficacy when the rivaroxaban dose was reduced to 10 mg once daily.