BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Whether dabigatran is associated with different risks of cardiovascular, bleeding events, and mortality from warfarin in Asian patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation remains unclear. METHODS We used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database to obtain 9940 and 9913 nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients taking dabigatran and warfarin, respectively, ...

BACKGROUND Sex differences were observed with regard to warfarin treatment in patients with atrial fibrillation, with women having a higher risk of stroke compared with men. We aimed to compare sex differences in use, safety, and effectiveness of dabigatran. METHODS AND RESULTS We conducted a population-based cohort study of patients with atrial fibrillation using administrative data in Quebe...

BACKGROUND Safety regarding switching from vitamin K antagonist (VKA) to dabigatran therapy in post-ablation patients has never been investigated and safety data for this is urgently needed. The objective of this study was to examine if switch from VKA to dabigatran increased the risk of stroke, bleeding, and death in patients after ablation for atrial fibrillation. METHODS Through the Danish...

OBJECTIVES Dabigatran etexilate is a new oral direct thrombin inhibitor for prophylaxis of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients who have elective surgery for total hip replacement (THR) or total knee replacement (TKR). Among the advantages of dabigatran etexilate over subcutaneous prophylaxis with Low Molecular Weight Heparin (LMWH) are reduced resource uses for (i) teaching patients to sel...

BACKGROUND Two phase 3 trials compared 28-35 days of treatment with oral dabigatran 220 mg or 150 mg (RE-NOVATE) or 220 mg (RE-NOVATE II) once daily with subcutaneous enoxaparin 40 mg once daily for prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE) after elective total hip arthroplasty. METHODS This prespecified pooled analysis compared the outcomes for the dabigatran 220 mg dose with enoxaparin, wh...

A 79-year-old Japanese man was diagnosed as having atrial fibrillation at a private hospital 5 days before coming to our clinic, where he was prescribed dabigatran at 110mg twice daily. Approximately 10 minutes after taking dabigatran with about 50ml of water – one-third of his usual amount – on the morning of the third day, the patient had odynophagia, retrosternal burning pain, and dysphagia....

BACKGROUND Dabigatran is a direct thrombin inhibitor approved by the FDA in October 2010 for the treatment of nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. Little is known regarding patient adherence to this therapy. OBJECTIVE To examine adherence and persistence to dabigatran among adults with atrial fibrillation. METHODS We used IMS Health's LifeLink Health Plan Claims Database from 2010 to 2012 to id...

INTRODUCTION Our aim was to analyze our clinical experience with dabigatran etexilate in secondary stroke prevention. METHODS We retrospectively included patients starting dabigatran etexilate for secondary stroke prevention from March 2010 to December 2012. Efficacy and safety variables were registered. RESULTS 106 patients were included, median follow-up of 12 months (range 1-31). Fifty-s...

Spontaneous hemothorax due to anticoagulant use is extremely rare in clinical practice. Dabigatran is a novel anticoagulant to prevent stroke or thromboembolic episodes in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. We report on an 83-year-old man who received dabigatran therapy (110 mg twice daily) for 7 months and developed massive spontaneous hemothorax and acute renal failure. The patien...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular assist device-supported patients are usually anticoagulated with a combination of aspirin and vitamin K antagonists. Long-term vitamin K antagonist therapy can be complicated by unstable international normalized ratio values and patient-related compliance problems. Therefore, direct thrombin inhibitors may represent an alternative to vitamin K antagonists. METHODS ...