Does continued warfarin treatment reduce the incidence of clinically significant device-pocket hematoma in patients undergoing pacemaker or ICD surgery compared to bridging therapy with heparin?
Continuing warfarin during pacemaker or ICD surgery significantly reduces the risk of device-pocket hematoma compared to heparin bridging.
As compared with bridging therapy with heparin, a strategy of continued warfarin treatment at the time of pacemaker or ICD surgery markedly reduced the incidence of clinically significant device-pocket hematoma. (Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care of Ontario; BRUISE CONTROL ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00800137.).
Birnie et al. (Thu,) studied this question.