Prevention and treatment of bleeding complications in patients receiving vitamin K antagonists, Part 1: Prevention

Oral anticoagulant therapy with coumarins is widely for the prevention and treatment of venous and thrombosis. The most common complication of K antagonist therapy is bleeding, with major events occurring in 1–3% of patients annually. a number of potential predictors for bleeding been described, little research is available to provide -based guidelines for the prevention of . To address this knowledge gap, we assembled panel of international experts and posed a series of clinical questions. The experts were asked to a systematic literature review and summarize the of that review within the context of their clinical . In many cases, data were lacking and the were asked to supplement their answer with clinical . To minimize bias the reviews were vetted three internationally recognized scholarly bodies. Our in this project is to provide ‘‘best evidence’’ for faced with the problem of minimizing the risk bleeding in patients on vitamin K antagonist therapy