![]() Queshi at al. have published a nice retrospective cohort study in order to answer the question if you should restart anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) after an event of gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB). If yes, will I harm the patient by doing so and when should I restart anticoagulation? In five years (2005-2010) 1329 patients developed major GIB. In 49.1% of these patients Warfarin was restarted and this was associated with decreased thromboembolism and reduced mortality. They were able to show that restarting Warfarin after 7 days was not associated with increased risk of GIB, but also reduced risk for thromboembolism and death compared to resume after 30 days of interruption. So, according to these data it seems safe to restart anticoagulation in these patients 7 days after a major GI bleed... and you even seem to do something good for your patient! Qureshi et al. Am J Cardiol. Nov 2013 Comments are closed.
|
Search
|