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BLOOD THINNERS PREVENT STROKES
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), October 9, 2000
Older patients at high risk of stroke commonly do not get the medications that could ward off strokes, researchers in St. Louis report.
Frail, elderly patients with chronic atrial fibrillation are not given blood thinners at the same rate as younger patients, the researchers conclude in a report that appeared in the journal Stroke this spring.
Atrial fibrillation is the failure of the heart's upper chambers to beat effectively, a condition that allows blood to pool and form clots that can be transported to the brain where they may cause a stroke.
Warfarin, a blood thinner, can prevent clots from forming, studies have shown, but researchers at Washington University School of Medicine found that elderly people who might benefit often do not get Warfarin.
"We found that Warfarin was underprescribed and that the most important predictor of underuse was advanced age," says Dr. Brian F. Gage, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University. "We also found that Warfarin can decrease the risk of stroke in a real-world population of frail and very elderly patients."
The St. Louis findings were based on analyzing records of more than 21,000 patients admitted to Missouri hospitals. Median age of those patients was 80. The researchers found that 45 % of patients who were candidates for blood thinners did not get
them. It also found that those who did get Warfarin had fewer strokes and deaths from strokes than those who did not.
