Hokusai-VTE: Edoxaban for the treatment of venous thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism is associated with a high morbidity and, if left untreated, may progress to fatal outcome. The standard treatment of venous thromboembolism consists of heparin followed by long-term treatment with a vitamin K antagonist. However, the use of vitamin K antagonist has several inherent problems and practical challenges. These challenges have prompted the search for new oral anticoagulant drugs including direct factor Xa inhibitors (e.g., rivaroxaban, apixaban and edoxaban) and thrombin inhibitors (e.g., dabigatran). To date, results for dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, for the treatment of VTE have been published. Recently, results of the 4th new oral anticoagulant agent, edoxaban, have been published in the Hokusai-VTE study. This review discusses the Hokusai-VTE study with special emphasis on its salient features (compared to other new oral anticoagulant studies) in addition to an overview on some key lessons learnt.