United States: A new oral anticoagulant pill, called edoxaban, may do the same for patients who are recovering from heart valve surgeries, as it is far safer and much easier to use than warfarin. In contrast to warfarin, the effects of which must be controlled intermittently, edoxaban has definite dosing that does not require repeated blood analysis and thus is less burdensome for patients.
Study Highlights
That they unveiled the research at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago on behalf of Dr. Chisato Izumi, director of the study at Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Centre. The study contrasted edoxaban with warfarin in about 400 patients who had received artificial heart valves at some hospital in Japan. When prescribed for 12 weeks, e dabigatran was as effective, if not better in preventing stroke and blood clotting.
Key Findings
Stroke and Clot Prevention: Major event could include stroke or embolism of which the number of cases in group taking edoxaban was only five as compared to seventeen in the warfarin group.
Major Bleeding Risk: Death from any cause occurred in 11.0% of edoxaban patients, compared with 9.8% in the warfarin group. No intracranial hemorrhage death was observed in the edoxaban group but there was one death from the warfarin group.
Heart Clot Incidence: Moreover, few patients of this group suffered blood clots in the heart which was 0% among those treated with edoxaban and 1% in the of patients under warfarin.
Gastrointestinal Bleeding: Despite slight differences on the incidences of individual complications, it could be observed that among the patients who used Edoxaban, 2.1% were had gastrointestinal bleeding while on the other hand, there was no record of such complication among the warfarin users.
Life Style Enhancements
The chief strength of EDOXaban can be summed up in the fact that it is easy to take. While warfarin needs frequent level of clotting tests in order not to overdose, edoxaban can be taken with ease without noting any problem of interaction with foods. This is less demanding to the patients most especially during the critical recovery period after the surgery.
Need for Further Research
However, touching upon the benefits of the drug, the authors of the article state that more research should be done to assess which patients are at greater risk for bleeding when taking edoxaban. The study also highlighted that both patients and doctors were aware of which medicinal product was being given, which may have colored the outcome. Patients with mechanical heart valves where warfarin therapy is used throughout the lifetime were not included in this research.