Background: Dual anti-platelet therapy including clopidogrel or prasugrel is standard of care for patients receiving stents. Prasugrel has quicker onset so it can be loaded later than clopidogrel with greater efficacy. However, prasugrel is much more expensive than clopidogrel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe performed a retrospective analysis of 250 records of consecutive, newly implanted, pacemaker patients from a single center to determine the rate of postimplant complications and observations discovered before and during the prehospital discharge evaluation. No observations occurred in 246 of 250 patients (98.4%) (1-sided 95% confidence interval 96.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree hundred nine patients were followed during their recovery area stay after percutaneous coronary intervention. Recovery area times for patients who received bivalirudin during percutaneous coronary intervention showed an average reduction in total recovery area length of stay of 36 minutes (p <0.0001) compared with patients who received heparin alone.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBivalirudin is being used more frequently as an anticoagulant in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Newer devices, used to measure activated clotting time (ACT), have not been thoroughly tested for use with bivalirudin. One such device, the i-STAT ACT, measures the generation of activated thrombin to determine the level of anticoagulation.
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