Anticoagulant therapy – do we know its interactions?

Summary

Anticoagulant therapy is one of the key substances in medicine for its ability to reduce blood clotting. For many years it was coumarin derivatives that formed the pillar of anticoagulant therapy. They are now being displaced by direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC). It is a known fact, that the use of warfarin has a number of disadvantages, such as low therapeutic index with the need for frequent laboratory checks of treatment effectiveness, risk of bleeding, slow onset of action and long persistence of the effect after discontinuation. However, a major problem with anticoagulant therapy is that many patients forget their interaction with drugs and food. It is a great advantage of the DOAC group, especially in a geriatric patient with polypharmacotherapy, that their therapeutic effect is less influenced by interactions with food and medication.

Keywords:

warfarin – Anticoagulant therapy – dabigatran – rivaroxaban – direct oral anticoagulants – drugs interactions – edoxaban – apixaban