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Blood thinners prescribed after blood clots within the leg or lung initially enhance the danger of bleeding, particularly in girls and the aged. However over time, this danger decreases and gender and age variations fade, a College of Gothenburg research reveals.
The goal of the research, revealed within the Journal of Inner Drugs, was to research the elevated danger of bleeding throughout therapy with anticoagulants after a blood clot within the leg or lung. Whereas the therapy protects towards additional clots, it will increase the danger of bleeding.
The usual protocol is to prescribe blood thinners for no less than three to 6 months, additionally known as preliminary therapy. After this time, the doctor must resolve whether or not to proceed the therapy, which is named prolonged therapy. This choice entails weighing the danger of latest blood clots if therapy is discontinued towards the danger of bleeding whether it is continued.
Widespread unintended effects of blood thinners embody nosebleeds, blood within the urine, blood within the stools, and extra frequent and bigger bruises, all as a result of the blood will not be clotting as normal. The chance of bleeding is linked to the therapy itself, that’s, a treatment-induced danger, in addition to the affected person’s baseline danger, which isn’t all the time thought-about.
Initially elevated danger of bleeding
Present data within the subject is especially targeted on the general danger of bleeding, with older folks being at better danger. The extent of the treatment-induced bleeding danger in several teams and totally different therapy phases, alternatively, has remained unknown.
The researchers used Swedish registry information encompassing greater than 36,000 sufferers present process therapy with blood thinners after a blood clot within the leg or lung paired with an equal variety of sex- and age-matched controls who had not had a clot and weren’t being handled with blood thinners.
Through the first six months, 338 folks (1.07%) within the affected person group skilled bleeding in comparison with 103 folks (0.29%) within the management group. The treatment-induced danger for girls was larger than for males, and the oldest contributors, aged 80 and above, had been most in danger.
Diminished danger in the long term
Throughout prolonged therapy, within the research from six months as much as 5 years, the treatment-induced danger of bigger bleeds was not related to gender or older age. Total, the treatment-induced danger decreased from simply over 2% throughout preliminary therapy to 0.7% throughout prolonged therapy.
One of many driving forces behind the research is Katarina Glise Sandblad, a researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy on the College of Gothenburg in addition to an inside medication specialist at Sahlgrenska College Hospital.
“When I treat patients with blood clots, the decision whether to discontinue treatment after the initial phase or to continue with lifelong treatment can be difficult. This study shows that the share of the bleeding risk due to blood thinners is low during extended treatment and doesn’t seem to increase with age. This is reassuring for both me and my patients,” she says.
Extra info:
Katarina Glise Sandblad et al, Extra danger of bleeding in sufferers with venous thromboembolism on direct oral anticoagulants throughout preliminary and prolonged therapy versus inhabitants controls, Journal of Inner Drugs (2025). DOI: 10.1111/joim.20067
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Blood thinner unintended effects diminish over time, analysis suggests (2025, February 14)
retrieved 15 February 2025
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