Venous Thromboembolism and Coagulation Biomarker Changes in Trauma Patients Using Cannabis

IntroductionPrior studies showed contradictory results regarding the impact of cannabinoids on thromboembolic events in trauma patients. The goal of the study was to investigate the association of cannabinoids to venous thromboembolism (VTE).MethodsRecords for all trauma patients admitted to the level one trauma center aged 14 years and above between October 18, 2019 and December 29, 2023 with urine drug screening (UDS) and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) results were included for collection. Patients testing positive for cannabinoids and patients testing negative for cannabinoids that were also negative for other illicit drugs and for alcohol were included in the final analysis primarily examining VTE occurrence, along with secondary outcomes in mortality, hospital length of stay, discharge disposition, and coagulation-related biomarkers. One-to-one propensity score matching analysis was performed.ResultsPatient population was mostly white (78.8%), mostly male (71.5%), had a median age of 46, and a median ISS of 17. Out of 302 patients, 226 tested negative and 76 tested positive for cannabinoids. In the matched analysis, no difference was observed in rates of VTE (7.4% vs 4.4%, <i>P</i> = .683) or in platelet count (median [IQR], 260 [215-304] vs 260 [211-306], <i>P</i> = .790). No significant differences were found between the groups on coagulation profiles, complications, or other outcomes.ConclusionsThis study failed to identify significant differences between coagulation-related biomarkers and VTE incidence of adolescent and adult, trauma patients who tested positive for cannabinoids vs those that tested negative for cannabinoids.Study designRetrospective cohort.Level of evidenceIV.