Dr. Nigel Key and Dr. Anna Falanga join us for a conversation on the updated ASCO VTE prophylaxis and treatment in patients with cancer guideline. They discuss recent evidence assessing apixaban for VTE treatment in patients with cancer and evaluating direct factor Xa inhibitors for extended postoperative prophylaxis. Based on this new evidence, they present updated evidence-based recommendations from the guideline expert panel. Dr. Key and Dr. Falanga also discuss outstanding questions regarding VTE prophylaxis and treatment in patients with cancer. Read the full guideline update, “Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis and Treatment in Patients with Cancer: ASCO Guideline Update” at www.asco.org/supportive-care-guidelines. TRANSCRIPT This guideline, clinical tools, and resources are available at www.asco.org/supportive-care-guidelines. Read the full text of the guideline and review authors’ disclosures of potential conflicts of interest disclosures in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.23.00294.  Brittany Harvey: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Guidelines podcast, one of ASCO's podcasts delivering timely information to keep you up to date on the latest changes, challenges, and advances in oncology. You can find all the shows, including this one at ASCO.org/podcasts.  My name is Brittany Harvey, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Nigel Key from University of North Carolina, and Dr. Anna Falanga from University of Milan Bicocca, co-chairs on ‘Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis and Treatment in Patients with Cancer: ASCO Guideline Update’.  Thank you for being here, Dr. Key, and Dr. Falanga.  Dr. Nigel Key: Thank you.  Dr. Falanga: Thank you. Brittany Harvey: Then, before we discuss this guideline, I'd just like to note that ASCO takes great care in the development of its guidelines and ensuring that the ASCO conflict of interest policy is followed for each guideline. The disclosures of potential conflicts of interest for the guideline panel, including our guests on this episode, are available online with the publication of the guideline in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, linked in the show notes.  So then, jumping into this guideline update, Dr. Key, what prompted an update to the ‘ASCO VTE Guideline’, which was last updated in 2019?  Dr. Nigel Key: Okay, well, thank you, Brittany, for that question. Well, first of all, ASCO has been providing this guideline since 2007 with iterations and full reviews of the data, the last complete one being in 2019. This update was really triggered by ASCO's signals approach, which relies on experts in the field suggesting an update to the guidelines based on recent publications that may be practice-changing. So, in this case, the signals were really a randomized control trial assessing apixaban for VTE treatment, venous thromboembolism treatment, in patients with cancer called the CARAVAGGIO trial, and we'll discuss that a little bit later. There were also a couple of randomized control trials which evaluated direct factor Xa inhibitors for extended postoperative prophylaxis, and these were new areas subsequent to the 2019 guidelines. So, a systematic review was carried out in the relevant topics for randomized control trials published between November 1, 2018, and June 6, 2022. And what you'll hear today is the result of that process.  Brittany Harvey: Great. And then you just described that guideline recommendations were updated both for prophylaxis and for treatment. So then, Dr. Falanga, what is the updated recommendation for perioperative VTE prophylaxis? Dr. Falanga: Thank you for this question. For this update, actually, there were two randomized trials addressing the extended thromboprophylaxis in cancer patients. This is an important question, and direct oral anticoagulants had never been included in the previous guidelines. So this new data indicating safety and in some way efficacy of these drugs were important to be in some way included. Actually, th