Tag Archives: anticoagulation

Yet More On Dabigatran??

November 10, 2011 The Trauma Pro Leave a comment

Following is a comment I received about one reader’s experience with this drug. Why don’t we just set some hard parameters or age limits on the use of such drugs? I’ll provide the opposing view tomorrow.

“So far, one clinical trauma experience- 70+ yo male cut his fingers working with a model airplane engine; on dabigatran. Blood loss nearly 1 L., no control of bleeding w. 2 hours of tourniquet time. Required microvascular ligation of digital vessels. Impressively powerful anticoagulant.

You have to be aware of dosing times to know how long anti-coag effect is likely to endure. Lab tests of little help. No demonstrated efficiacy of Factor VIIa or PCC; in fact, PCC has been shown not to help in one trial. It is effective with Xarelto, though.

Our blood bank stays up at night worrying about this drug, with good reason, since we do our own collections.

Clinicians prescribing this drug should look at bleeding risk scoring systems (HEMORR2HAGE, HAS-BLED) as well as the CHADS2 score before deciding to use this drug.

I suspect it will be ultimately replaced by the Factor Xa inhibitors.
N.B- New Zealand has been reporting a myriad of bleeding issues with this drug. Since it is a relatively closed system, their experience should be a bellweather.”

Shockdoc
Trauma Program Director

Click here to download a reference sheet for dabigatran reversal.

General

Emergency Care Of Bleeding From Dabigatran

October 26, 2011 The Trauma Pro Leave a comment

Finally, a consensus report has been finalized by the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI) regarding bleeding in patients taking dabigatran (Pradaxa). I’ve written about the special problems posed by patients who are injured while taking this drug and related ones. I’ve also provided some management algorithms for consideration while complete ones were crafted. Well, here they are.

A workgroup of experts from hospitals here in Minnesota were convened to consider and provide a framework for managing these patients. A document was released recently to help guide their care.

To summarize, patients who experience a severe bleed, say from trauma, should be managed with:

Holding the medication
Evaluating bleeding. In trauma, this will generally involve CT scan.
Consider the need for surgery
Give activated charcoal if the drug was taken within 2 hours
Consider dialysis
Transfuse blood if hemoglobin / hematocrit needs to be improved
Infuse plasma after 4 units of red cells, and cryoprecipitate after 8 units packed cells / 4 units plasma if needed
Consider prothrombin complex concentrate or activated Factor VII in extreme cases

Click here to download the official document from ICSI.

General

Anticoagulation Reversal In Trauma

September 28, 2011 The Trauma Pro Leave a comment

I’ve previously written about reversing specific agents that may interfere with clotting in trauma patients. Today I’m going to provide a reference sheet to help you reverse any of the common agents that your trauma patients may be taking.

This reference is a work in progress and will change as new drugs are introduced. I’ll update it as revisions are made. And as always, comments and suggestions are welcome!

Click here to download the reference sheet.

Thanks to Colleen Morton MD from Regions Hospital for sharing this draft

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