Novel oral anticoagulants: A new era in anti-thrombotic therapy

 

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For over half-a-century vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) served our patients well as effective anticoagulants, several novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs) have emerged and are now available as a suitable alternative for stroke prevention, venous thromboembolism prevention and treatment and to reduce vascular events in acute coronary syndrome. Compared to VKAs, the novel agents have several advantages including an improved efficacy/safety ratio, a faster onset of action, shorter plasma half-life, few drug or food interactions, and no requirement for regular monitoring. Although very promising in many regards their proper use will require new approaches in many daily aspects with dose adjustments may be required for patients with severe renal impairment or in the setting of drug interactions. The lack of specific antidote makes reversing their effect during bleeding or for emergency surgery particularly a major challenge. This article provides a focused overview on their current status.

Publication History

Received: 05 July 2013

Accepted: 23 July 2013

Article published online:
07 July 2022

© 2013. The Libyan Authority of Scientific Research and Technologyand the Libyan Biotechnology Research Center. All rights reserved. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License,permitting copying and reproductionso long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, oradapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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