Nedaa Skeik
Associate Professor of Medicine Section Head, Vascular Medicine Medical Director, Thrombophilia & Anticoagulation Clinic Medical Director, Hyperbaric Medicine Medical Director, Vascular Laboratories
Title: The New Era of Anticoagulation
Biography
Biography: Nedaa Skeik
Abstract
Despite starting as a rat poison, warfarin has done a good job in reducing thromboembolic events in in patients with atrial fibrilations, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and mechanical heart valves. However, wafrain has multiple pitfalls affecting the initiation and adherence rate to this medication. Such pitfalls include requirment for bridging agents since it takes few days to reach therapeutic level in plasma, requirement for monitoring, frequent interactions with other medications and interpatient variabililty in regard to dosing. The introduction of target specific anticoagulants (DOACs) to the market has created a paradigm shift in the management of patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism. Based on he current data, DOACs have shown good efficacy and safety profile in compare to warfarin. However, lack of specific antidote and not being available for patients with mechanical valve creats limits their use to some extent.