Cardiovascular chemotherapy: anticoagulants
Review published in Current opinion in chemical biology (1998)
Abstract
Anticoagulant therapy has changed dramatically during the past two years. Low molecular weight heparin has substantially replaced unfractionated heparin as the parenteral anticoagulant of choice. The use of warfarin has substantially increased, especially for prevention of stroke in the setting of atrial fibrillation. It has become clear that warfarin cannot be administered effectively in an unmonitored fixed-dose fashion. The parenteral direct thrombin inhibitor desirudin was shown to be efficacious in the prevention of deep vein thrombosis in man. Small thrombin and factor Xa inhibitors with in vivo oral anticoagulant activity have been identified.
Abstract sourced from PubMed (NCBI) for the cited record. See the original publication for the authoritative version.
Summary
Research article relevant to leech therapy and its derived compounds.
Why This Matters for Hirudotherapy
This 1998 review surveys then-recent shifts in anticoagulant therapy, noting that low-molecular-weight heparin had largely displaced unfractionated heparin as the parenteral agent of choice, that warfarin use had grown (especially for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation) but could not be given effectively unmonitored, that the parenteral direct thrombin inhibitor desirudin proved efficacious for deep-vein-thrombosis prevention, and that orally active small-molecule thrombin and factor Xa inhibitors had been identified. Its ASH relevance is direct in part: desirudin is recombinant hirudin, a thrombin inhibitor derived from the medicinal leech, making this an early snapshot of leech-secretome-based therapeutics entering cardiovascular practice. Caveat: as a brief narrative review from 1998 it summarizes others' work and is now historically dated—useful for tracing the origins of the hirudin/DTI drug-discovery story rather than as current clinical guidance.
Citation
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