December 22, 2020
Clinicians have a new tool to help them in deciding how best to balance risks and benefits when there’s a need to mix anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapy in patients with A-fib or venous thromboembolism (VTE). It comes in the form of an expert consensus decision pathway from the American College of Cardiology (ACC).
“In general, we have recommended against routine use of triple therapy, which would be [dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT)] plus anticoagulation,” Dharam Kumbhani, MD (UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX), chair of the writing committee, told TCTMD.
Double therapy is the way to go for most cases “based on the concordance of all the data that’s available,” he said, “and several meta-analyses that have looked at that and provided that conclusion.” There are some scenarios when a patient has a high thrombotic risk and low bleeding risk, for example for which physicians may opt for triple therapy for a short duration, Kumbhani no
December 14, 2020
In a world indelibly changed by COVID-19 more than 72 million confirmed cases and 1.6 million deaths, and counting people and institutions have proven adaptable and resilient: look no further than the development of vaccines and the rollout now underway.
That achievement would not have been possible without improvements and acceleration in the clinical research enterprise, something also seen within cardiology research, which had to respond quickly once it became clear that COVID-19 was affecting not just the lungs, but also the heart and other organs.
This story is part of
Envision Change, an end-of-2020 series imagining a different future for cardiology, medicine, research, and health. SEE ALSO: Funding the Future, Remaking Medicine, Heroes to Human.