 |
|
|
|
|
Warfarin Trumps Aspirin in Preventing Stroke in Elderly
|
| | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Overall, there were two brain hemorrhages in the 488 participants who received warfarin, and one in those taking aspirin.
"This is a landmark study because of the large number of patients," said Dr. David A. Garcia, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of New Mexico, who wrote an accompanying editorial. "It certainly establishes that warfarin is the most effective way to prevent stroke in people with atrial fibrillation in that age group," he said.
Still, warfarin does carry a higher risk of excess bleeding, at least for some people, Garcia noted. "That subgroup is probably smaller than we once thought," he said. "What we need in the future is a way to identify those patients at high risk for bleeding, whether they are elderly or not, and at the moment, there still is work to be done to identify the patients at high risk prospectively."
Text Continues Below
Whenever he treats older people who have atrial fibrillation, "my own personal practice is to try very hard to get them on warfarin, because I know the benefit is extremely large for most patients, especially for those in this age group," Garcia said.
Use of warfarin often requires fairly frequent blood tests to monitor the International Normalized Ratio (INR), a measure of the ability of the blood to clot, Garcia said. British rules state that once the INR is well-controlled, blood tests can be done 12 weeks apart, Mant said.
More information
There's more on preventing stroke at the American Stroke Association.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2
|
Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 8/10/2007
|
|
SOURCES: Jonathan Mant, M.D., reader in stroke epidemiology, University of Birmingham, U.K.; David A. Garcia, M.D., associate professor, internal medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Aug. 11, 2007, The Lancet
|
.gif)
