New Trends in Anticoagulant Therapy

Abstract

Both unfractionated heparin and warfarin were used as parentheral and oral anticoagulant agents only available for clinical use for a long period of time. They both are potent, but require close monitoring to prevent bleeding complications, because the dose necessary to achieve appropriate antithrombotic effects may vary from person to person, or even vary from day to day in the same patient. To avoid matabolic instability, low molecular weight component of the unfractionated heparin was extracted to make low-molecular-weight heparin. Stable anticoagulant effects can be achieved by fix-dose subcutaneous injection of low-molecular-weight heparin. Recently, orally available specific antth`]mbin has been developed to overcome the safety problem of warfarin. Indeed, the time-course of anticoagulant effects achieve by the oral ingestion of ximelagatran was similar to that of subcutaneous injection low-molecular- weight heparin. Anticoagulant agents, which can prevent thrombotic disease effectively, without increasing bleeding complicatons, are awaited.