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Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia affecting elderly patients. Management and treatment of AF in this rapidly growing population of older patients involve a comprehensive assessment that includes comorbidities, functional, and social status. The cornerstone in therapy of AF is thromboembolic protection. Anticoagulation therapy has evolved, using conventional or newer medicat...

More than 2.5 million Americans are chronically anticoagulated for indications including venous thromboembolism (VTE), mechanical heart valve(s), or atrial fibrillation (AF).1 Each year, 10% of these patients require temporary interruption of anticoagulation for an invasive procedure. Defining the most appropriate management strategy for these patients requires an assessment of the periprocedur...

INTRODUCTION Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and has important clinical repercussions, increasing thromboembolic events and mortality. The CHA2DS2-VASc and HAS-BLED scores assist the clinician in assessing the benefits and risks of antithrombotic therapy. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess and improve the quality of prophylactic antithrombotic therapy pres...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is commonly encountered in the daily clinical practice. Cancer is an important VTE risk factor. Proper thromboprophylaxis is key to prevent VTE in patients with cancer, and proper treatment is essential to reduce VTE complications and adverse events associated with the therapy. DESIGN AND SETTINGS As a result of an initiative of the Minis...

swine flue is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease caused by a subtype of influenza a virus. herein we present three patients with h1n1 infection complicated with pulmonary thromboembolism. the patients had chest pain and unexplained dyspnea. imaging studies showed bilateral hilar predominance. computed tomographic angiography confirmed bilateral thromboembolism (an unusual presentatio...

INTRODUCTION Visible hematuria is not rare in patients on anticoagulant therapy. There is no consensus regarding the diagnostic approach for them; some authors suggest restricted volume of diagnostic procedures because of the low number of urological etiology found. Some antibiotics have been reported to potentiate the effect of oral anticoagulants. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study addresses th...

RATIONALE Pulmonary veno-occlusive disease (PVOD) is a rare form of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Oral anticoagulation is confined to patients with idiopathic PAH (IPAH), but no oral anticoagulation has been recommended for PVOD, because occult pulmonary hemorrhage was a common finding in PVOD. PATIENT CONCERNS We report a case of PVOD, who was misdiagnosed as IPAH for 5 years with w...

Intracranial haemorrhage (ICH), which affects up to 1% of patients on oral anticoagulation per year, is the most feared and devastating complication of this treatment. After such an event, it is unclear whether anticoagulant therapy should be resumed. Such a decision hinges upon the assessment of the competing risks of haematoma growth or recurrent ICH and thromboembolic events. ICH location an...

Electrical cardioversion of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is frequently performed to relieve symptoms and improve cardiac performance. Patients undergoing cardioversion are treated conventionally with therapeutic anticoagulation for three weeks before and four weeks after cardioversion to decrease the risk of thromboembolism. A transesophageal echocardiography (TEE)-guided strategy has...