• Raji Shameem and Jack Ansell.
• Department of Internal Medicine, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY 10075, USA. rshameem@nshs.edu
• Best Pract Res Clin Haematol. 2013 Jun 1;26(2):103-14.

AbstractVitamin K antagonists have been in wide use for over 70 years. Warfarin, the most commonly used vitamin K antagonist, has been shown to be highly effective in treating and preventing thrombosis. Despite this, warfarin has many disadvantages, which has led to the development of a new class of oral anticoagulants targeted to specific coagulation factors designated as target-specific oral anticoagulants (TSOAs). TSOAs include the thrombin inhibitors (dabigatran) and factor Xa inhibitors (rivaroxaban, apixaban). This chapter reviews the disadvantages of warfarin and evaluates both the advantages and disadvantages of the new oral anticoagulants.© 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

45 keywords...

hide…