Research lead by Assistant Professor Inmaculada Hernandez, PharmD, PhD was recently published in the journal Stroke.
Using data from 2010 to 2012 for a random sample of Medicare beneficiaries, the Pitt research team identified atrial fibrillation patients who suffered a major bleeding event while using warfarin or dabigatran, and evaluated the patterns of anticoagulation use after the bleeding event. About half of those people resumed one of the two anticoagulants a few months after the bleeding, while the others did not. The analysis determined that resuming anticoagulation therapy after a person suffers a major bleeding event was associated with a higher likelihood of stroke-free survival than discontinuing anticoagulation. Furthermore, restarting therapy with the new oral anticoagulant dabigatran was associated with a lower risk of recurrent hemorrhage in these cases than the old standby drug warfarin.
This research was funded by Commonwealth Foundation and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Institute of Mental Health. Hernandez was supported by a fellowship from la Caixa Foundation.
More Information:
http://triblive.com/local/allegheny/11572996-74/bleeding-risk-taking and https://consumer.healthday.com
