Coumadin Outweighs Hemorrhage Risk in Older Afib Patients - CME Teaching Brief� - MedPage Today
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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 4 -- Even though anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation may boost the chance of an intracranial bleed slightly in elderly patients, the benefits of the therapy outweigh the risk of a hemorrhage, according to researchers here.
In a retrospective study of more than 13,500 adults with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, hemorrhage rates rose with age, and were actually slightly higher among patients who were not taking Coumadin (warfarin), wrote Margaret C. Fang, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues.
The risk for hemorrhage rose "strikingly" after age 80, the authors reported in the Aug. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. But they also found the risks for other adverse events outweigh the risks for hemorrhage in patients on Coumadin.
Posted by gruwell at August 7, 2006 5:50 AM | TrackBack