IMR Press / RCM / Volume 10 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.3909/ricm0498

Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine (RCM) is published by IMR Press from Volume 19 Issue 1 (2018). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with MedReviews, LLC.

Open Access Review
Bridging Therapy in the Perioperative Management of Patients With Drug-Eluting Stents
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1 Division of Cardiology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, and The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2009, 10(4), 209–218; https://doi.org/10.3909/ricm0498
Published: 30 December 2009
Abstract
Patients with drug-eluting stents appear to be at increased risk of thrombosis beyond 30 days (late) or even 1 year (very late) after stent placement. Patients with recent placement of drug-eluting stents who are receiving dual-antiplatelet therapy pose a challenge in the perioperative period. Current guidelines recommend discontinuation of clopidogrel 5 to 7 days prior to surgery or invasive procedures to prevent bleeding complications. When a patient with a drug-eluting stent is off of clopidogrel, he or she is at risk of stent thrombosis, even during treatment with anticoagulants, such as intravenous heparin. There are currently no universal recommendations for decreasing the risk of stent thrombosis. We herein outline a strategy involving the use of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors as “bridging therapy” during the high-risk perioperative period and report on 8 patients who successfully underwent bridging therapy with no adverse cardiac outcomes (death, myocardial infarction, or stent thrombosis) or bleeding complications.
Keywords
Anticoagulants
Clopidogrel
Drug-eluting stent
Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors
Stent thrombosis
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