Post-Hoc Analysis of RE-MEDY™ Demonstrates Significant Real-World Net Clinical Benefit for Dabigatran Versus Warfarin in Prevention of Secondary Venous Thromboembolism

Background: The double-blind, parallel-group, noninferiorityRE-MEDY™ study comparing the direct oral thrombin inhibitor dabigatran etexilate to warfarin in the prevention of secondary venous thromboembolism (VTE) showed non-inferiority of dabigatran to warfarin in both hazard ratio (HR) and risk difference for recurrent symptomatic VTE and related deaths. The benefit-risk balance of dabigatran compared to warfarin in secondary VTE prevention can be further explored by evaluating the net clinical benefit (NCB).

Methods: Patients with a diagnosis of VTE received dabigatran 150 mg twice daily (n = 1430), or warfarin adjusted to maintain an international normalized ratio (INR) of 2.0–3.0 (n = 1426), for an additional period of 6–36 months after 3–12 months of anticoagulant therapy. NCB in the RE-MEDY™ study was evaluated narrowly by (1) analyzing nonfatal recurrent VTE, nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke, nonfatal systemic embolism, all-cause death, and major bleeding events (MBEs), and broadly by (2) including clinically relevant bleeding events (CRBEs). The latter is considered more applicable to real-world clinical practice. NCB was also assessed by center time in therapeutic range (cTTR – the mean TTR of all warfarin patients in each center).

Results: The narrow NCB (1) was similar between dabigatran and warfarin (HR 1.05, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.75–1.46). For the broader NCB (2), a statistically significant difference was evident favoring dabigatran over warfarin (HR 0.73, 95% CI: 0.59–0.91).

Stratification of the NCB by cTTR quintiles demonstrated that the positive benefit of dabigatran over warfarin was preserved when comparing to warfarin patients with a good INR control.

Conclusion: In the assessment of real-world net clinical benefit in the prevention of secondary VTE, dabigatran was superior to warfarin, irrespective of INR control in the warfarin patients.

*Nonfatal recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE), nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke, nonfatal systemic embolism, all-cause death.