Timing is Everything
Patients on antiplatelet medications are at greater risk for bleeding during surgical procedures. As a result, cardiac surgery is often delayed from five to seven days in order to minimize the risk of complications that might result from platelet inhibition. Delays in surgical procedures and discontinuing a patient’s antiplatelet therapy impact the cost of care and increase the opportunity for a devastating ischemic event.
However, studies show that individual patients vary widely in their rate of return to baseline function after their platelet medications are discontinued.1-3
NOW More Important Than Ever
The development of stronger P2Y12 inhibitors, such as prasugrel (Effient®) has given doctors a powerful new tool to combat ischemic events—and created a new challenge for surgical planning. In fact, the TRITON-TIMI 38 study found that prasugrel patients are at increased risk of bleeding.4
Surgical Guidelines Recommendations
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists recently recommended the inclusion of point-of-care platelet reactivity testing in the Blood Conservation Clinical Practice Guidelines for preoperative patient assessment. Due to the considerable variability in patient response to clopidogrel, the newly revised recommendations for blood conservation in patients undergoing cardiac procedures with differing risks incorporate the following class IIb (C) recommendation:
Backed by numerous peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate clinical utility and analytical performance, the VerifyNow® System provides you with an easy and rapid solution to help you assess your patient’s platelet response to aspirin, Plavix®, Effient, Ticlid®, ReoPro® and Integrilin®.
The VerifyNow System delivers a proven assessment of your patient’s platelet response,
allowing optimized scheduling of surgical procedures and creating the potential for:
• Shorter pre-surgical hospital stays
• Significant related cost savings
• Shorter pre-op event window
• Minimized risk of complications without the wait
