Ibrutinib increases perioperative bleeding risk in patients with hematologic malignancies: Study

Ibrutinib patients who underwent cutaneous surgery between January 2013 and March 2020 were compared to sex, disease, and age-matched control patients in this retrospective, single-center, case-control research.

The key findings of this study were:

1. There were 116 operations conducted on 64 control patients and 75 operations overall on 37 case patients.

2. The risk of bleeding episodes was statistically significantly higher when using ibrutinib (6/75 [8%] versus 1/116 [0.8%]).

3. Ibrutinib patients who had bleeding were all men, older (mean age 82.7 vs 73.0), and had lower mean platelet counts (104.0 vs 150.5 K/L) than ibrutinib patients who did not have bleeding.

In conclusion, an increased risk of bleeding following dermatologic surgery may be linked to ibrutinib. For dermatological procedures, temporary cessation of ibrutinib should be taken into consideration. Doctors should talk with oncologists about the advantages and disadvantages of stopping ibrutinib 5 days prior to and 3 to 5 days following surgery.

Reference: 

Aghazadeh, N., Jin, M. F., Pride, R. L., O'Byrne, J., & Vidal, N. Y. (2022). Perioperative Bleeding Associated With Ibrutinib in Dermatologic Surgery: A Case–Control Study. In Dermatologic Surgery: Vol. Publish Ahead of Print. Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). https://doi.org/10.1097/dss.0000000000003590