Anticoagulant

The Endocrinologic and Metabolic Diseases Advisory Committee of the FDA voted 16-0 in favor of the safety and efficacy of icosapent ethyl, based on available data, to support its approval for an indication to reduce risk for CV events.

Elderly patients with atrial fibrillation who were prescribed direct oral anticoagulants had significantly lower risk for osteoporotic fractures than patients who were prescribed vitamin K antagonists such as warfarin, researchers reported.

New endoscopic techniques and changes in the pharmacologic landscape prompted an update in guidelines for managing patients with nonvariceal upper GI bleeding.

Dual antithrombotic therapy conferred less bleeding but similar rates of mortality, stroke, nonfatal MI and stent thrombosis compared with triple antithrombotic therapy in patients with atrial fibrillation and concomitant CAD, according to a meta-analysis published in The American Journal of Cardiology.

Rivaroxaban failed to demonstrate noninferiority to dose-adjusted vitamin K antagonists in patients with thrombotic antiphospholipid syndrome, and the agent even showed a nonsignificant doubling of the risk for recurrent thrombosis, according to results from an open-label, randomized, noninferiority trial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

PARIS — The use of oral anticoagulation increased as the prescriptions of antiplatelet agents decreased in patients with atrial fibrillation from 2012 to 2015 in Italy, according to data presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.

Older patients with atrial fibrillation were more likely to have high bleeding risk contraindications with oral anticoagulation and higher mortality compared with patients who were not treated with oral anticoagulation and did not have contraindications, according to a observational, longitudinal analysis published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology.

According to new data from the COMPASS trial, patients with systemic atherosclerosis assigned low-dose rivaroxaban plus aspirin had reduced risk for cardioembolic stroke and embolic stroke of undetermined origin compared with patients assigned aspirin alone.

PARIS — In this video exclusive, P. Gabriel Steg, MD, FESC, provides investigator insight on NAXOS, the largest real-world analysis on the effectiveness and safety of apixaban compared with a vitamin K antagonist in Europe among patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.

Early anticoagulation after bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement was associated with short-term reduced risk for stroke in patients who had surgical AVR but not in those who had transcatheter AVR, researchers reported.