Doctors stress the need for the millions of Americans on antiplatelet therapy to be well-educated about both the benefits and risks of blood thinners, widely prescribed to reduce the risk of blood clots.
Millions of Americans take blood thinners to reduce the risk of dangerous blood clots that can lodge in the heart or brain and cause a heart attack or stroke. Dr. from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “As with all drugs, these drugs come with risks,” says Nadine Shebab, “The most serious is bleeding.” Anticoagulants are often prescribed to reduce the risk of a second heart attack or stroke.
To better understand the risks, the CDC used national databases to identify emergency department visits for bleeding in patients prescribed the common blood thinner warfarin and patients using combination therapy of the popular anticoagulants Plavix (clopidogrel) and aspirin. They examined data from a two-year period, finding 384 emergency department visits per year for bleeding among patients receiving combination antiplatelet therapy and 2,986 visits per year for those taking warfarin marevan tablet in pakistan.
This translates to 1.2 hospital visits for bleeding per 1,000 prescriptions for dual antiplatelet drugs and 2.5 visits per 1,000 warfarin prescriptions. “It wasn’t as big a difference as we thought,” Shebab said, noting that the bleeding risks from the common blood thinner combination of Plavix and aspirin are not as well understood as the bleeding risks from warfarin (generic Coumadin). ). For those taking a combination of blood thinners, the most common reasons for emergency room visits were nosebleeds or other minor bleeding.
Shebab called the smaller-than-expected difference in risk between the two treatments “disturbing.” “There is a tendency in the clinical community to treat the hemorrhagic risk of dual antiplatelet therapy a little less seriously than warfarin marevan 5mg. We hope that by shedding some light on the burden and nature of bleeding risks, providers will take the risk of dual platelet therapy seriously.”
The spokesperson of the American Heart Association, professor of cardiology at the University of California, Dr. Gregg Fonarow emphasizes that the benefits of dual platelet therapy outweigh the risks. “The use of dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular events in patients after acute coronary syndromes and in patients undergoing coronary stenting,” said Fonarow, “This finding reinforces the need for patients receiving dual antiplatelet therapy to be well . the benefits of treatment and the importance of compliance, at the same time informed about the increased risk of major and minor bleeding.”
