Real World Outcomes Associated with Idarucizumab: Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: Idarucizumab reverses the anticoagulant effect of dabigatran, but few comparative studies have reported on clinical outcomes with idarucizumab.

Objective: Our objective was to determine the effect of idarucizumab on clinical outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study in a nationally representative sample of hospitals in the United States. The study population included adults ≥ 18 years who were hospitalized for dabigatran-associated major bleeding between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2017. We compared idarucizumab-exposed patients to the unexposed group. Our primary outcome of interest was in-hospital mortality.

Results: We included 266 exposed and 1345 non-exposed participants across 271 hospitals. Among participants with gastrointestinal bleeding, there was no statistically significant difference in the odds of in-hospital mortality [9/153 (5.9%) vs 37/1124 (3.3%); adjusted odds ratio = 1.39, 95% confidence interval 0.51-3.45] between the idarucizumab-exposed and non-exposed groups. Among participants with intracranial bleeding, there was an excess of in-hospital mortality [13/112 (11.6%) vs 6/217 (2.8%)] associated with idarucizumab exposure, but limitations include sparse data and the inability to rule out residual confounding or confounding by disease severity.

Conclusions: Among a large nationally representative sample of adult patients with dabigatran-associated major bleeding in the United States, we found no difference in in-hospital mortality among patients with gastrointestinal bleeding associated with idarucizumab exposure. An excess risk of in-hospital mortality associated with idarucizumab exposure among participants with intracranial bleeding deserves further exploration.