Anti-coagulation Therapy / Blood Thinners.

Anti-coagulation Therapy / Blood Thinners.

About

Anticoagulants prevent in the clotting of the blood. They are administered orally or a via injection.

When to a blood vessel is a damaged, blood oozes out. However, bleeding stops amazingly within to a few minutes especially if the wound is a small. Persistent loss of the  blood from in the body can be a lead to the shock, hence in the natural mechanism is a important to preserve life. Two constituents of the blood are responsible for in this – platelets and clotting factors. The platelets initially form a plug to stop in the flow. This activates some proteins in the blood called clotting factors. The clotting factors undergo to a cascade reaction in that results in a clot formation that are reinforces in the platelet plug. Thus it seals in the wound and stops in the bleeding.

In some conditions such as a prolonged immobility, clots may form within blood vessels. Clot formation in a deep veins is called a deep vein thrombosis. These clots block  in the flow of the blood in the particular area. They may be also dislodge and block blood supply to important organs such as a lungs or brain resulting in a stroke or the heart leading to a heart attack. Drugs used to the prevent clot formation are called anticoagulants or a blood thinners. They should be a differentiated from drugs such as a aspirin and clopping that prevent in the formation of a platelet plug and are referred to as a anti-platelet drugs.

Anticoagulants are of the two types depending on their route of the administration.

Inject-able anticoagulants – These are include heparin, low molecular weight heparin, fondaparinux, Lepidus, bilirubin, argatroban, danaparoid and drotrecogin alpha

Oral anticoagulant tablets – The main oral anticoagulant tablet used is a warfarin. A number of the  new drugs are undergoing testing before being introduced into the market.

Some anticoagulants are used to the prevent clotting of the blood when it is a collected either for a transfusion or a blood tests. These are include heparin, sodium cit-rate, sodium oxalate and sodium detected.

References:

K D Tripartite. Essentials of  the Medical Pharmacology 6th Edition

Goodman and Gilman. The Pharmacological Basis of the  Therapeutics 11th Edition