Safety of oral anticoagulants in advanced chronic kidney disease

Abstract

Background: patients who take long-term oral anticoagulants and also have CKD have a greater probability of bleeding.

Methods: a retrospective, descriptive cohort study reviewing the clinical charts of anticoagulated patients with Stage 3 CKD or above seen at an anticoagulation clinic, in order to evaluate hemorrhagic events and baseline characteristics of the population over a two-year period.

Results: 238 patients were included. The anticoagulants used were warfarin (45%), rivaroxaban (31.5%), apixaban (14.3%) and dabigatran (3.4%). According to the KDIGO classification, 78% of the patients had CKD G3 (37.3% G3a and 40.7% G3b), 15.9% G4 and 5.8% G5 with renal replacement therapy (RRT). During the study period, only 20 patients (8.4%) had hemorrhagic events; of these, seven (35%) were major (four associated with warfarin, two with rivaroxaban and one with apixaban). The other 13 bleeds were minor and associated with warfarin in 46.1% of the cases. Gastrointestinal bleeding was the most common (35%), followed by soft tissues (30%). There was only one fatal bleed, which occurred in the central nervous system (CNS) in a patient with CKD G4.

Conclusion: a low rate of bleeding was found, which could be related to close follow up by an anticoagulation clinic. The anticoagulant most frequently associated with bleeding was warfarin which could be related to a low time in therapeutic range (48.8%). Due to the low rate of events, comparisons could not be made.